


The Veil

by emptyheadspace



Category: Buzzfeed The Try Guys (Web Series), Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Buzzfeed Unsolved Supernatural, Demon, Demon!Eugene, Demon!Shane, Ghosts, Hell, Medium - Freeform, Pain, Protecting Ryan, Psychic!Ryan, Secret Identity, Spirits, Summoning, actually I'm a demon and we feed off suffering, buzzfeed unsolved - Freeform, demon sass, haunted, like a boatload of angst with a tasteful sprinkle of fluff, shyan, tragic ending I'm sorry, truly am sorry maybe, zagene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-08-07 20:47:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 33,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16415681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emptyheadspace/pseuds/emptyheadspace
Summary: Shane Madej, the man with an almost disquieting lack of fear, is a demon.Ryan Bergara, the jumpiest human Shane has ever met, has The Sight.Ryan can see the dead, ghosts, spirits, he’s seen them all. One more thing, he can see the swaths of black that follow certain humans around. He wishes he couldn’t. Anyone followed by the black will die very, very soon.So when Shane is tasked to prevent Ryan from screwing up the fabric of reality and the veil and between the earthly planes and the supernatural side of things with his show Buzzfeed Unsolved, the show that Ryan started to prove so badly to all those who wouldn’t believe him, Shane the demon accepts the job. He wanted to feel what humans felt.Now -Ryan Bergara is terrified. He had never seen anything like it before. Instead of being followed by the black, he saw the black inside of his new coworker.Shane has got what he wanted, and he doesn’t know what to think of it. He’s feeling more human than ever. He’s scared, all because he was falling for Ryan Bergara.





	1. hellos and some bops

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which I introduce this whole shindig and provide you with some meticulously-tailored playlists

_**hello ghouls:** _

are you up for angst? are you up for humour? are you up for snappy wit and biting retorts? are you up for fluff? are you up for demons? are you up for ghosts? are you up for death? are you here because you're here to check out the latest ghost show on the block?

then you're in the right place! congrats!

I shall not reveal much, but I can assure you that you're in for one  _hell_  of a ride. 

____________

To start off the vibe, here are some masterfully crafted playlists, courtesy of yours truly (or this bitch).

_**relevant to the fic:** _

demon!shane: [I love emotions!](https://open.spotify.com/user/ad8kehzc86997538ad92243x3/playlist/7KkQoiMttAYLkwxY7W04st?si=pA9sopXNSqWZXfn7rEw-YQ)

demon!eugene: [well fuck.](https://open.spotify.com/user/ad8kehzc86997538ad92243x3/playlist/44RMrGH7KtQKCpILT7Ysq3?si=-KZz8w4QTieaF4SDd2PPmw)

ryan bergara: [are ghosts real? they are.](https://open.spotify.com/user/ad8kehzc86997538ad92243x3/playlist/0exC67gfCJjpmKWQdLGgzQ?si=v3T8glMxSSiBzZHg0CmFtg)

shyan: (coming soon do check back)

_**irrelevant but equally worthy:** _

ricky goldsworth: [who's ryan?](https://open.spotify.com/user/ad8kehzc86997538ad92243x3/playlist/6huCaaQ94PjkmcceSvW6SE?si=fDw22Bk2RISFL4bX5Geisw)

cc tinsley: [this looks like a case for C.C. Tinsley!](https://open.spotify.com/user/ad8kehzc86997538ad92243x3/playlist/3N3KDea5YZDupnqMwwjqhq?si=_PnOOWMSQoGYRn74HOcj9g)

tinsworth: (coming soon do check back)

_**rest assured because I'll constantly polish and update these playlists to ensure that you're getting the best quality of bops.** _

 

**Warnings:**

1) Do not read if you can't stand seeing words like fuck, bitch, shit, or bear.

2) Do not read if you have a weak heart or a bigoted mindset.

3) Do not shit talk the demons, ghosts, or other supernatural, paranormal, and extraterrestrial beings. No supernatural disrespect in this here good house of mine.

4) Demon!Eugene can be an asshole at times. Yes, we all know that and we love him.

5) Demon!Shane needs to get his feelings together. We know.

6) I apologize in advance for the ending, and the angst. It does not end well.

 

**Here's a short guide for reading this glorious fic:**

1) A list of things you'll need: tissues, water, snacks, a fellow unsolved and try guys fan, a sense of humour, a stomach for slight gore, human emotions, a phone with texting capabilities

2) Sit down, make sure you're nowhere that could be potentially dangerous if you pass out.

3) Open up the first chapter, and read.

4) Make sure you have hydration and nourishment on hand, you do not want to leave halfway. God knows what will happen if you do.

5) When you reach a good part, feel free to screenshot it, send it to a friend, laugh over it, cry over it, obsess over it. Now's the opportune moment to punch your friend in the face because you're so charged with feels or enamoured by my sense of humour.

6) Search inside your soul and reach for your human emotions. Let it all out, don't pull a Shane Madej.

7) Have fun.


	2. hellos and some bops

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> rule #1: learn everything about your new body.

It smells like death. The last of the custodians had cleared out and locked up less than an hour ago, leaving the stainless steel of autopsy tables and coolers and bodies to sit quietly in the dark. There’s something almost serene about a roomful of corpses and body bags.

  
Every single body had been zipped up in body bags, some with sheets laid over them to cover the lifeless features. Except one.

  
Shane Madej died on the 3rd of July, in the back of an ambulance. He was still alive when they found him lying by the roadside, and nobody knew who he was until after his death. He died alone lying on that stretcher in the back of that ambulance. Worst thing was, he wasn’t even special, just a regular guy who died on a regular day. One death among many.

  
They laid his body in the morgue after they performed the autopsy. Said he died of a car crash and that’s it. Hit and run. Like the dozen other hit and run cases that pass through the city every other day.

  
Now, the body was lying cold and dead on top of steel. They didn’t even bother with a sheet. Just laid the stiff corpse out on top of the steel.

  
The strangest thing was, the body was moving. Not really moving, but pulsing, twitching ever so slightly. Its fingers twitched a little, and one could have sworn its arm just shifted a little to the right. It was almost magical.

  
It was starting to shift and twist a little. There was a pulse starting up somewhere under the clammy flesh. The blood started to pump again. The colour was seeping back into its pale face. The steel table started to rattle a little.

  
It was spasming violently now. The clanking of metal would be truly terrifying if not for the impossible thought of revival. Of regeneration. The clammy flesh was crawling. All the gaping cuts made in the flesh were starting to seal, the cells rejoining and mending the skin. It was both captivating and morbid and absolutely horrifying.

  
The body sat bolt upright. It rolled its shoulders, sending a crackle of joints across the silent morgue. It stretched and cracked into place, almost like watching a cat yawn and raise its hackles. It sat still for a few moments, tasting the silence in the room for a bit.

  
Its pupils rapidly dilated and constricted, the eyes making quick work of the darkness. The darkness seeped straight into the sclera, a sea of black encasing one circular pierce of flickering red. If you stared into its eyes, you would see hellfire blazing through its stare.

  
The creature, once Shane Madej, now swung its legs over the edges of the autopsy table.

  
“Sure smells in here!” It brought a finger up to its own throat. _Gonna have to get used to that voice_. It wiggled its toes and brought up its fingers to its eyes. _Ten fingers, ten toes, two eyes, all check_! It’s been awhile since it had occupied a human body. The last time it didn’t go so well and it ended up being kicked out of its new host and all the way back to hell.

  
“My name is Shane Madej.” It almost rehearsed to itself (and all the other dead bodies in the morgue) with its newfound voice. “I work for Buzzfeed as an actor and editor.”

  
When a demon takes over a body, it has the power to retain the memories of the new host as long as the brain after death is less than a day old. The demon took a while to mull over the life story of Shane Madej. _Pretty sad guy, I might add._

  
“Shane” got up. From then on, it was Shane Madej, Buzzfeed actor and editor.

  
Shane got up from the table. His limbs felt a little too gangly and his head hurt just a little. _Say, this guy's all leg and all head_! No matter though, at least not for now. He had to get out of here, this morgue. He thought it was a pretty swell accommodation for the dead, not taking into account the rancid stench.

  
His foot landed on something wet and slimy. And dark. He took a sniff.

  
Blood. Well, just another day around the dead!

  
Wiping his hands on a row of stacked linen sheets nearby, he made quick work of the morgue’s locked doors. Conveniently, he found a set of cleaner’s duds nearby. Don’t want to be wandering out into the streets naked!

  
With that, he set off for the streets with one name in mind: Ryan Bergara.


	3. cue ryan bergara

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> rule #2: find out everything about your target.

“Hello sir, what can I get you today?”

“Hey, can I get a-“

The barista turned around to face Ryan. He froze.

“Sir?”

“Uh I-“ Ryan shook his head. He thought about speaking up, but he didn’t. “I, one cappuccino, yeah one cappuccino, just…easy on the milk. Thank you.”

“Is that all, sir?” She looked concerned.

He tried to smile, but he just couldn’t. She just looked so young. He had to look down for a second, then he formulated a careful reply, “Yeah! I’m good.”

She flashed him a comforting smile, clearly worried about whatever he had going on in his head. Probably thinking that he had some deep-rooted problems or some worries of some sort. The thing was, he wasn’t the one who should be worrying.

He wanted to walk away. Let his two feet take him out of the damn place, back right out before his own mind had a chance to process what the hell was going on. He couldn’t stick around, he’s tired of sticking around, he’s tired of being the only one who really understood what was going on around here.

Yet he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t, and he couldn’t. Like an idiot, he stayed rooted to the spot.

It was like watching himself through the eyes of someone else. Watching the world go by from a window of dissociation from above. As shit went down, he could only stare.

“Hey, one cappuccino, easy on the milk for that guy over there,” the barista passed Ryan’s order on to her coworker. “It’s my break now.”

They nodded and she unfastened her apron and tossed it over some chair somewhere.

Ryan couldn’t move. Everything was happening so fast, yet so slow, all at once. It was like a shitty montage of poor transitions and terrible decisions, one after the other, boom, boom, and boom. And he couldn’t do anything to stop it.

He tried saying something, but nothing came out of his mouth. He knew it would be useless anyway. He could only watch, standing by the counter like some inflatable rubber ducky with oddly-proportioned eyes. He didn’t want to look, but his eyes could only trace the girl’s path as she made her way out of the cafe.

 _Don’t go outside!_ He was screaming, but nobody could hear him. _Fuck, fuck, fuck!_ His feet wouldn’t move, his heart was in his head, everything was starting to spin. All he could see was the black leeching onto the girl’s shoulders. It was staring back at him, taunting almost, a stark reminder of the fact he could do absolutely _nothing_ about it.

Too late.

It was like a movie scene. Girl walks out onto road. Car comes flashing into the scene. Ugly thud of metal against flesh. A crunching of bones and skin. Blood spilling all over the asphalt. A mangled mess of guts across the road. People stopped in their tracks by sheer horror.

Everything was so far away. Ryan could only stand there. Something was caught in his throat. He needed to lie down. The thudding was in his ears now, all over his head. Like some recorder player stuck on repeat. He wanted to slump against the ground, but for some reason he found his bearings and stood where he was.

He wasn’t watching the cafe-goers jump out of their seats, dashing to the scene like some demented paparazzi mob until they surrounded the terrible aftermath of the crash. He wasn’t hearing the panicked screaming of the weak-hearted.

He was staring at her. A flicker of a figure standing by the pavement, staring down at her own body. Unnoticed by anyone else. He caught her eye, a look exchanged between them. Then she turned away and was no more.

Ryan stumbled back before barely catching himself. If only he could have said something. Nobody would’ve been believed him anyway.

He took his coffee from the deserted counter and left the place.


	4. enter buzzfeed unsolved

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> rule #3: know who you're facing.

_Someone is calling him from far away._

_He can’t hear them._

_There was no fear in that man’s face when he went over the edge. His stare tore straight through Ryan’s own when he pushed himself off the rock. When he fell._

_The tears don’t stop. They just come and come, even when the man hit the water. Even when Ryan hit the ground. He can’t stop seeing the blackness. The vision, it just kept hitting it in waves after wave. The sight of the man throwing himself off the cliff, it’s repeating itself in his head over and over again._

_Someone pulls him away from the cliff’s edge._

_There is screaming._

_Someone in uniform is shaking him._

_Ryan can’t speak. He can’t find the words. All he can think is black._

_The black had been following the man. It clung to his clothes in large, withering wisps, like it was waiting for something. It was so black, so deep, that is was taking the air out of his lungs. Like the depths of the night itself. It is an omen of death._

_Sirens are getting nearer._

_“What did you see?”_

_“He fell…off,” Ryan manages to cough up. “Fe-fell off, he fell…cliff.”_

_“It’s okay, take it slow…”_

_“I can’t-“_

_“Just go slowly, tell me everything you remember…”_

_His words are trailing off, everything can’t come together in his head. Black. Everything was about the blackness. Ryan exhales shakily, “I saw the black…it was there again, it just kept, there, it was following…”_

_“What black?”_

_Ryan doesn’t want to do this now, but he has to. He goes over the words shakily, “When the black follows, they will die…they always do, they die. It’s the black!” He needs to sit down._

_“You’re in shock,” the police officer says so matter-of-factly. “You should lie down, come.”_

_“You don’t believe me.”_

_“You need water, kid.” The officer directed him towards a nearby bench, near the cop cars that had just pulled up. They’re closing off the scene._

_“I saw it! Okay? You have to believe me.” Ryan is shaking now._

_“Kid…”_

_Ryan pulls out of the officer’s arms. He takes off running. Away from the cliff, away from the scene, away from everybody. Away from the flickering figure that was watching him from the edge of the cliff. He has to get out of there._

_“Kid!”_

_Ryan doesn’t turn back._

_Nobody ever believes him._

 

The office was a mess. Papers were scattered all over the ground. Pens were lying everywhere, but never where Ryan needed them. The desk had been shifted around multiple times just to make space for his plans on the floor. Thank god the door was locked, nobody wanted to see a motivated madman with no sense of time.

The moment Buzzfeed tasked Ryan to pitch a video series of his own, he already knew what he wanted to do. Ryan had to make this work. It would be his greatest creation of all time. His greatest achievement. Unsolved. A show where he would investigate everything mysterious, supernatural, criminal, unsolved. He knew this would be big, the views would come flooding in.

No, he did not want fame. He did not want glory. All he wanted, was to finally prove to the world that ghosts, spirits, the undead, they were _real_. Not just some fiction dreamt of to scare children or for entertainment or cheesy TV tropes. It was all very real, it was all very scary. People deserve to know.

Ryan wanted it so bad. This was his only chance to do what he couldn’t do for all those years of running. He could finally make it up to himself.

Ryan Bergara had The Sight. He’s had it all his life. It had been a curse so far, but maybe this could be the one opportunity he needed to use it for a _purpose_.


	5. brent no

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> rule #4: take every opportunity to get close to your target.

“…will remain, _unsolved_.”

“Well, that’s a wrap!” Mark said from behind the camera.

Ryan let out a sigh. He stepped out of the house with the rest of the production crew. No more weird entities fucking around with him today. Even though the things he can see usually don’t do anything weird to him, he stills feels a little odd talking outrightly to them after he had been avoiding them his entire life.

“Ryan?” Brent came up to him.

“Yeah? I’m good,” Ryan instinctually said.

“Yeah, okay but-“ Brent stopped. “I have to tell you something.”

“What? Is this about the chili dog dare I made you-“

“No, it’s not that…” Brent was juggling between a smile and a wince on his face, and Ryan slowly turned to face him. Ryan’s mind was doing the thing again where it jumped to the worst possible outcome of any situation.

“What?”

“Okay so,” Brent inhaled and continued. “I didn’t want to disappoint you but I don’t think I can do Unsolved anymore.” He spit out in one continuous stream of unexpected words.

Words. What are words? What is understanding?

Ryan finally spoke up after his mind started to process everything. He didn’t know what to say at first, but proceeded to ask, “Wait, what? What do you mean?”

“I just, don’t think I can you know, do the show.” Brent shrugged.

“What do you mean you can’t- never mind, uh, why?” Ryan had to keep himself from stuttering. _Uh oh_.

“I just don’t like the thought of messing with all this stuff,” Brent explained. He gestured in the general direction of the house they just came from. “Well not messing with, but it spooks me a little.”

“I, guess I get it.” Ryan definitely knew what it was like to be spooked.

“Yeah, good talk,” Brent tried to smile a little, but he could see the disappointment in Ryan’s face. “Are you okay with it though?”

“Yeah, yeah I’m perfectly fine! This is all great!” Ryan said just a little too aggressively. “…I’m sorry.”

“No, I understand if you want me to stay on…”

“I get it, you don’t have to stay on, that’s just messed up,” Ryan sighed. “I just need some time to think things through for-“ Ryan was the one to gesture around wildly now. “This whole thing, Unsolved, the show. Just, things.”

“Well at least you can leave the reason why I left out of the show to give the viewers some sort of mystery right,” Brent made an attempt at humor. “Give them an unsolved mystery for a show called Unsolved.”

Ryan smiled a little weakly. “Yeah…”

“Hey, time to head back,” TJ called from the van.

“Guess it’s time to go,” Brent said.

Ryan followed him silently. This added a whole new range of worries to the top of his worry list. Like a to-do list, but worrier. Wait, that was a word. Worry-er?

How could he do this without Brent? The show would fall flat without another host, he wouldn’t be able to do this alone. Who would rebuke his theories and challenge his beliefs and return the banter? Buzzfeed would take his show back and he would never be able to prove anything to anyone and he-

“You’ll find a stand-in who’s less of an ass,” Brent interrupted his thoughts as he patted Ryan’s back a little awkwardly while they walked. “I’m sure there’s someone else willing to.”

“A new co-host…” Ryan snapped out of his stupor. That’s it! This whole time he had been worrying about having to run and host Unsolved all by himself when all he needed was a new co-host! A stand-in for Brent to laugh at his jokes and bring a new thing to the show. That’s exactly what Unsolved needed!

“Yeah, just ask around,” Brent suggested, smiling a little.

“I think I will.”

 

Ryan has tried asking around Buzzfeed. First, he tried asking those he actually knew, Steven first, but he said something about gold and proceeded to ramble about how he would start his own food show if he had the chance to. Next he tried Jen, but she said no to poking around and investigating the supernatural. He knew asking any of the Try Guys would be futile. Next, he tried the ones he thought would have the chops for co-hosting the show, Garett, Chris, Zack, quite a few people really. Nothing turned up. Not even when he asked those who he thought wouldn’t make as swell of a co-host. He’s asked so many people.

He only had a few people left to ask. Frankly he wasn’t feeling very hopeful. He’ll try again tomorrow, but for now he’ll lay off the desperation for a bit.


	6. who is shane madej?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> rule #5: don't forget your identity.

Shane stepped into the LA Buzzfeed Office. All he could find in Shane’s, well his, closet was a lot of shirts in the same color, some flannel, some jackets, and an unholy number of pants. The man had a decent taste in clothes, albeit with a lack of flamboyance. His wardrobe needed some kick. That little punch of spice. He would have to go shopping these days. Now, he would have to settle with a shirt, flannel, and a dark-bluish jean jacket to keep him warm.

The weather was a little chilly. He couldn’t help eyeing everyone who wore only one layer in the streets. Hell would have frozen over twice before he’d agree to walk out into the streets on the mortal plain without an outer layer or two. He wasn’t used to this temperature.

Shane was glad this human form let him gain an imposing height over the average human. At least he wouldn’t be foreign to looking at others from this height. He found himself lifting his hand to touch where his horns would have sat near the back of his head, but instead touched nothing but hair and air instead. These new eyes of his didn’t seem to accommodate a much sharper, more fine-tuned field of peripheral vision either.

Shane managed to find his way to the office without getting run over by a car again. He’s fought creatures, ghosts, angels, other demons, but nothing in his life has prepared him for this dangerous moment: office work. Besides the fact that he had spent all night poring over the speech patterns and the quirks and habits of Shane Madej. Couldn’t get things done if he couldn’t even pull off an acting job. One suspicion from any of his coworkers would send everything spiralling out of his control, and back to Hell he would go. He was not going to fail his job again.

Shane walked in through the doors and glanced left and right, taking stock of what he was up against. Mostly he could rows and rows of tables with desktop monitors on top of them, with a lot of wheely-spinny chairs (office chairs? Is that what mortals called them? How boring.) and people wearing headphones and chatting and walking around.

“Shane!” Someone walked up to him and put a hand around his back.

This man must be Steven Lim, based on his jacket-wearing tendencies and his hair (tasteful? no idea).

“I want your,” At this point Steven was turning to look up at Shane. “opinion, on what it would be like if I were to start a show comparing food.”

Shane did not sign up for this.

“Look I know it sounds crazy, but just imagine.” Steven was flailing his two hands wildly around in a gesture known as excitement. Or he could have been having a stroke. “Imagine if there were three drastically different price points of food, and in this show we’ll go around to try them all, and we’ll pick the one that is the most worth it at it’s price-“

Shane was already walking away. He needed to find out who Ryan Bergara was quick.

“Shane! Just imagine!” Steven called out from behind. “It’ll be called Worth It and all-“

Shane had already rounded the corner.

Now, Shane usually wasn’t a very clumsy man, but it was at that moment when he and whatever poor shorter fool he had run into, came into the happenstance of a collision.

The other guy dropped a whole bunch of papers. Being the polite being he is, Shane of course apologised and helped pick everything back up.

“Shane?”

He was just about to walk away until it occurred that Shane was his name.

“I was wondering if you would like to, uh, co-host this thing I’m doing,” the man started off a little nervously. Shane didn’t even know who the man was. He continued, “It’s a series called Unsolved, Buzzfeed Unsolved, a show revolving around whether ghosts are real! Or other conspiracies and unsolved stuff in general, yeah. It’s kind of weird to say this, I know.”

Then it hit Shane. Like a sandbag to the noggin. A metal shank to the cranium. A little boot to shake up his foggy brain. This man was Ryan Bergara. This silly little show he was going on about, _this_ was what Shane was here for. To stop this man from exposing whatever world he came from with just a series of investigative episodes!

“Yes, yes I’ll do it!” Shane said a little too eagerly. He had to catch himself from saying something stupid or suspicious or both at the same time, if that was even possible. “I’ll co-host your show, Unsolved, yeah.”

“Wait, really?” Ryan looked almost shocked.

“Yeah!” Shane did a little tilting of the head. “Why not?”

“It’s just well, nothing. You’re one of the last people I’ve asked in the office.” Ryan shrugged. “Everybody else has said no so far.”

“Well, glad you asked me then.” Shane winked.

For a second, Ryan had a glimmer of something else on his face. A judgmental flicker, a confused look, a suspicious stare, whatever it was it was gone in a second. He smiled. A little too brightly. _Nobody should have that bright a smile_ , Shane mused.

“Right, so…I was planning to go over some plans for the next episodes later,” Ryan began. “Care to join me?”

“Oh, yeah! Sure, sounds good,” Shane replied.

“Great! See ya,” Ryan called out over his shoulder as he walked away.

“Yeah, see ya too,” Shane whispered to himself. Maybe he was smiling, who knows?


	7. eugene swoops in to save the day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> rule #6: work with others of your own kind at your own risk.

“So, my plan is to have two seasons.” Ryan pointed at some messy chart on the wall. It looked like one of those old-fashioned crime boards that hangs on the back of detective offices in those murder mystery movies. “This one we’ll be doing first will be called True Crime.”

“What happened to your other host?”

“Sorry, what?” Ryan turned around to face Shane.

“You clearly had another guy going around here, right?”

“How do you know?” Ryan looked perplexed. He had just started filming with Brent for the past few weeks, and had been keeping the whole thing under a layer of secrecy. None of the episodes had been released yet. He hadn’t even told anyone else at the office.

“Well.” Shane pointed at the other seat at the table where the camera was facing.

“I could’ve moved that chair in here this morning, you know.”

“No, you didn’t.” Shane smiled smugly, doing that upturned V-shape of his mouth with air of knowing. He offered no further explanation for how he knew.

“You’re right, I didn’t,” Ryan found himself smiling. Whatever awkwardness they had between them earlier on had been broken by Shane. The ridiculously gangly and tall Shane with a head bigger than the average watermelon or something. Ryan wouldn’t be surprised if the man was secretly wearing stilts under all that denim or something. It certainly would explain how long his legs were.

“So, why the interest in the unexplained side of things? If I could call it that.” Shane leaned back in the couch he was sitting on and stretched his legs on out on the chair in front of him. He could hardly see how this show would manage to expose the supernatural to the rest of world, but orders were orders.

Ryan debated telling Shane the truth for just a glimpse of a second, but of course he decided against it. He settled on something else instead, “Well have you ever heard of the word curiosity?”

Shane grinned. He could see that Ryan was starting to warm up to him.

“Well, anyway, True Crime will be…”

And for once, Shane actually finally paid attention to Ryan’s babbling.

 

“Well, I thought you were all stiff and you know,” Ryan said, laughing.

“A snob?” Shane suggested. Ryan’s laughter was contagious.

“Yeah!” Ryan wheezed.

Shane pretended to look hurt.

They were sitting at the outdoor tables next to the office. Shane, the human, used to sit with a couple other coworkers, but he ate alone sometimes. Shane now assumed that those coworkers wouldn’t mind if he sat and ate with Ryan instead.

As noon approached, the sun was finally starting to stop being a weak shit. Almost warm enough to finally shed the jean jacket.

“Getting a little hot there, big guy?” Ryan asked.

“Hm, maybe I should take this off.” Shane did a little contorting to slip one of his arms out of the jean jacket.

Before he could take off the jacket, someone placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Sorry, could I borrow Shane for a sec?”

Shane looked back up to see a man in an outfit that could be described as “way more stylish than his own or Ryan’s”, and his hair was almost intimidating. He stared at Shane as if he was almost pissed off, or irritated. Shane had never been intimidated by a mortal before. This was not going to be his first. He stood up to his full height.

Before Ryan had a chance to respond, the stranger whisked Shane away to a corner.

“Hey man, what’s your deal?” Shane asked, looking the guy up and down. From Shane the human’s memories, he knew that this man was named Eugene, and although they didn’t interact much, Eugene was a well-known face at Buzzfeed.

“It’s me.” The man known as Eugene said in such a tone that implied Shane should’ve known who he was. Shane didn’t.

“You’re Eugene, right?”

Eugene sighed. He closed his eyes for a second, and revealed a flaring centre of gold sitting in two piercing black scleras. He held Shane’s stare for a bit, before backing off and reverting back to his human eyes.

“It’s you!”

“Yup, it’s me.” Eugene brushed some dirt off his shirt. Or rather, the ubi named [redacted], whose name could not be translated into any human language, brushed some dirt off his shirt. That’s right, the demon inhabiting the body who was once Eugene Lee Yang, was an ubi, what was close to an incubus (as known to humans) specifically. One that Shane, or rather [redacted] had a history with. It was complicated on every level.

“What did you do that for?” Shane eyed him suspiciously.

“I was trying to stop you from giving away yourself,” Eugene stated matter-of-factly.

“What are you even talking about?”

“I’m talking about that jacket of yours.” Eugene pointed. “Keep it on, you shit.”

“Why?” Shane stared at him pointedly.

“Because if you don’t,” Eugene sighed. “Ryan will see the black in you.”

  
_Is he going mad?_ Shane thought.  

“No, I’m not going mad if you’re wondering,” Eugene pointed out. “Did the higher-ups not tell you that Ryan has The Sight?”

  
“Yes, but what does that have to do with me?”

Eugene sighed in almost-disdain.

“Yes, not only can he see entities, but he can also see Death itself, in the form of shadows or this alleged black form following humans around.”

“Yeah I get it, okay!” Shane snapped. “But what does my jacket have to do with anything?”

“He can see the black in us,” Eugene said. “When a demon inhabits a human body, the black that Ryan sees doesn’t just follow us, it comes from inside _us_.”

Shane pointed to his jacket and stared questioningly.

“Dark colors mask the black.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“If you don’t believe me, just walk over to Bergara there without your jacket on,” Eugene proposed. Almost as if he was daring Shane to. “Don’t come running for help when he finds out.”

“How do you know all this?” Shane asked accusingly. “Am I missing something here?”

“Well, I guess you could call it experience.”

Shane held his stare for a bit, then he slipped his jacket back on. Better to play it safe than yield to his own pride. Eugene’s stern features softened a little.

“Nice outfit,” Shane remarked. Not only had he suddenly understood why the other demon was donning a black leather jacket, he had to admit the other demon had a sort of flair about him. Eugene’s look fit him well. Leather jacket, slim-fit jeans, his hair teased in some sort of curly updo. It fit him well.

“Hm.” Eugene shrugged. _Of course he would be too prideful to say thanks._

“I should get back to him.” Shane nodded in the direction of Ryan.

Eugene nodded.

Shane turned to walk away.

“Thanks,” Eugene called out from behind him.


	8. first unsolved case

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> rule #7: don't let the mortals discover your true identity.

That encounter with the other demon left Shane thinking. He had no idea why [redacted] would be here, at Buzzfeed, at some mortal’s half-baked idea of a company. He also had no idea why he would help another demon like himself. _Probably to stop me from exposing the both of us and save his own_ hide. Whatever it was, Shane didn’t think too much of it.

“I’m back, baby!” He swung back into the seat beside Ryan. “What we doing now?”

“We’re doing…Unsolved.” Ryan smiled with an ominous air about him.

 

“This week on Buzzfeed Unsolved we cover the mysterious disappearance of the Sodder Children.” Ryan started off the episode. TJ shot him a thumbs-up from the sidelines.

_Wow, he’s really getting into this!_ Shane kept this thought to himself. No sense in ruining a good bit of footage with a blabber of his mouth. In fact, he thought it was quite impressive how seriously these people took their line of work. 

Ryan caught him staring. “Uh, you look enthralled!” Ryan half-snickered half-exclaimed. “You look really excited!”

Shane smiled. “I can’t wait,” he said with a quirk of his eyebrows.

“I think you’re about to have your mind _blown_ ,” Ryan said.

“We’ll see,” Shane said, laughing. Ryan started laughing too. He couldn’t take his eyes off Ryan’s funny little face. Shane’s definitely seen some shit over the years, he really was curious to see what Ryan could dish out. The awkward pauses and slight tension between them from earlier on was completely gone, or wa-powed, as Shane thought.

They were still laughing until Ryan continued, “Let’s get into it.”

“The year was 1945…” Ryan began with an air of what could only be described as conspiracy. Shane found it quite enthralling, the way his intonation showed on certain words. Really gave this show a little something. Shane didn’t think he’d give two damns about the show, but now he was beginning to see what little merit it was starting to have.

The story goes that a fire broke out in the Sodder house in Fayetteville, VW at around 1am, when the occupants of the house were still asleep. George and Jennie Sodder, along with four of their children, made it out of the house, but five of their children remained in the house. George had broken back into the house but the staircase was on fire, and when he went back out to retrieve his ladder, it was missing from its normal spot. Both of his coal trucks which he wanted to park outside and climb on top of, were strangely not starting.

Shane snorted a little. “Don’t park your coal truck by a fire…” Shane said plainly. “That’s a bad idea…” He almost couldn’t believe what he had just heard. Coal is flammable! There was a fire going on nearby for land’s sake!

“Yeah I mean-I can’t imagine there was coal in the truck at the time,” Ryan spoke up.

“Oh, okay I mean-“

“I’m sure it was empty of coal, I think-“

“Well I don’t know! Uhh, it’s a coal truck!”

Ryan started laughing a bit, “He, he just climbs on top of a pile of coal!”

Shane started laughing a bit too. “He’s all just covered in flammable coal!”

Ryan started doing a funny little wheeze. Whatever tension Shane almost started was gone and he found himself laughing at Ryan’s funny little wheeze. He liked how Ryan returned his remarks, how he easily lost himself in their banter. Yet he had a job to do. Can’t have his own disbelief at how strange humans can be sometimes butting in on his duties. 

Ryan went on about how the fire department in the town nearby arrived only 7 hours after the fire had started. By the time they had arrived, the house had already been reduced to a pile of ash. _And they didn’t even answer their phone until some neighbour drove out to find the fire chief!_ _Unbelievable!_ Shane was nearly appalled, humans continue to surprise him.

“Time to, evaluate your staff there!” Shane almost gasp-laughed.

Ryan started wheezing again. It made him sound like he had some respiratory condition, but in a good way. It made him smile a bit every time Ryan wheezed.

“You really see where your tax money’s going there,” Ryan replied.

Shane was having the time of his life. And one of the most confusing times of his life since he stepped into Shane Madej’s life. Humans were both intriguing and puzzling at the same time. The demon had often observed their ways of life before he was assigned to this job, but never once had he worked out why humans behaved the way they did. Sometimes he wished he could put himself into the life of a human, live how they do, talk how they do, _feel_ how they do. Yet it’s not something a demon can do, they may be able to insert themselves into a human body, but they do not ever retain the emotional capability of one.

“In their defense, it was Christmas Eve,” Ryan said as if that was supposed to mean something. Another human holiday Shane never really understood.

“Oh, it’s fine if people die on Christmas Eve,” Shane said almost jokingly.

Ryan couldn’t help but wheeze.

As the mysterious tale of the missing Sodder children unfolded itself in their office, Shane found himself realising many things about Ryan. One, Ryan was really passionate about this show that he had roped Shane into. Anyone could tell how much he was putting into the whole idea of Unsolved, it was in the way he read off the case files he prepared, it was in the way he was ready to back anything he said up with information, it was in the way he so confidently answered all of Shane’s questions. Shane found it admirable.

Two, Ryan was hiding something. Shane already knew Ryan was fighting to tell him about his abilities. He found it a curse. It was one of Shane’s abilities as a demon: He knows. He just does. Albeit not being to understand how humans felt, he knew what they thought. And Ryan here thought this Sight he had was a curse. That wasn’t all of it. There was a hint of something going on somewhere inside Ryan Bergara.

Something that he wasn’t telling anyone anytime soon.


	9. shut up eugene

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> rule #8: reveal any personal secrets at your own risk.

The hard porcelain basin ran red. It wasn’t exactly red, it was the shade of blood that oozed from a wound that’s been festering for days. Sickly and sticky. Shane quickly ran the tap and flushed the blood off the smooth white, the aftertaste of old blood sticking to the dry insides of his mouth. This was what happened when a demon chooses to take over a corpse instead of a living human individual. Not that Shane wasn’t aware of the consequences.

His hands were jammed up against the cold edge of the sink as he tried to still his trembling fingers. They were trembling so badly. Thank god nobody else was here to see this. He couldn’t still the thoughts that were sloshing wildly around his brain either. The pain was slowly overtaking his limbs.

He dug his claws into his palm. This other pain, searing and fast, felt like a _relief_ as compared to the one that was creeping up his insides and mangling his consciousness. It kept him from screaming out as well. He wasn’t hyperaware of any sounds that came remotely close from outside the bathroom door anymore. Instead, he was feeling every minuscule tear of pain that shot through every inch of mortal flesh in this body. He hated it. But it was ultimately himself who chose this way out.

The demon had a choice to take over a living body, some other poor human who wasn’t dead, but he chose not to. Possession of a conscious human would have given him much less trouble and saved him all this pain, and it would even let him leave the body on autopilot instead of spending every goddamn second deciding how the human would act. But he was a demon with a stubborn ass and half a heart.

The blood trickling down his fingers has started to turn sticky.

“Please wipe your hands before someone else comes in.”

Shane whipped around, his eyes eclipsing a red brighter than blood, poised with the stance of someone who had been conditioned to ignore the flight part in ‘fight or flight response’.

“Jesus christ, Madej!” The ubi scoffed. “What if I was one of the humans? Would you have been prepared to kill me?”

Ignoring the ubi’s ironic use of that particular swear, Shane’s eyes flickered back to those of a human, his stare never once leaving Eugene’s own. Despite being almost a head taller than the other demon in their forms, Shane didn’t feel like he came across as very intimidating as of that current moment. He chose his words carefully, ignoring the shaking of his own voice, “How long have you been in here?” Shane knew very well how the other demon got into the bathroom without having to open the door.

“Long enough,” Eugene stated blankly, never once breaking eye contact as he stepped closer to Shane. “You should be glad that it’s me.”

Shane said nothing. The stab of pain in his hands have been reduced to nothing but a dull throb, and the residual pain in his limbs have slowed enough for him to ignore it almost completely. He finally broke eye contact with the other man and proceeded to run his hands under the cool water of a tap.

“C’mon,” Eugene sighed. “We’re both going to be here for a bit, we can’t just avoid each other like this.”

Grumbling, Shane turned back around to face Eugene. He matched Eugene’s stare again, searching for the slightest sliver of contempt, anything that would reveal the ubi’s true colors as a liar and a trickster. If the past meant anything, he knew he couldn’t trust the ubi. Yet he couldn’t find anything. There was nothing. Shane’s stern expression faltered for the slightest of seconds. 

“Hey, you okay?” The ubi sounded genuine. For once.

Shane ignored him. He didn’t want to talk about himself, nor did he want to talk about the past.

“I get it, okay?” The other demon persisted in getting all up in Shane’s face.

“How?” Shane snapped a little louder than he would care to admit. How could the other demon, one who was here on Earth not because of responsibility, but for his own selfish pleasures, possibly begin to _understand_? How could he understand anything Shane was going through? Shane clearly was the only dumbass around here who was stubborn enough to cram himself into a lifeless human body and force it to function.

“Because I’ve been through it!” Eugene seethed back.

Shane stopped fuming and turned towards him.

“The pain,” Eugene said a little less aggressively. “Taking over a lifeless meat suit and everything.” Shane couldn’t help noting his mental amusement at ‘lifeless meat suit’.

“You mean-“ Shane cut himself off to gesture in the general direction of where Eugene was standing. “Is he, you know-“

“Dead? No.” Eugene folded his arms. “Dying? Close.”

Shane kept silent, waiting for Eugene to go on.

“Coma.” This Eugene averted his gaze. Shane knew how to take a hint, and he stopped pursuing the subject any longer.

“How do you do it?” Shane was too tired to put any conviction into his words. He decided not to let the past interfere with his time here at Buzzfeed with the other demon.

Eugene didn’t need further clarification to know what Shane was talking about. It was the only sense of empathy demons had. At least for demons who were far from their familiar territories of the hellscape. For demons who were masquerading as humans on the mortal plane for their own intents, no matter if these intents were for selfish needs or directives from the upper beings of Hell itself.

“You get used to it,” Eugene stated, offering no further explanation. Shane was suddenly aware of how uncomfortably small the bathroom was in this space with two demons around.

“Eugene?”

The two demons now whipped towards the doorframe, trying not to let their defensive stances show. Shane could see from his peripheral vision how Eugene almost dropped to a low stance, both legs grounded, the optimal fighting stance. However, he didn’t. He settled for simply steeling his stance instead. Shane had done the same.

A man named Zach Kornfeld stuck his head around the door. Even from inside the bathroom Shane could tell how much smaller he was than the two of them. His eyes settled on Eugene.

“Hey Eugene!” He called out. “They’re starting.”

“Right! I’m coming out now,” Eugene called back.

A smirk was spreading across Shane’s face. Eugene turned around in time to catch it before Shane could pretend he wasn’t smiling like an idiot.

“Wipe that shit-eating grin off your face before I do.” Eugene fired an empty threat at Shane. Shane knew he wasn’t going to do anything, because Shane was right. Shane felt a little touch of smugness from his teasing, a remnant of their good times back in the days.

“You like him.”

Eugene grumbled something under his breath. He looked like he was about to punch Shane in the face for a second, but he held back.

“I have to go, we’ll talk about this next time.” He whirled around to face Shane. “Good luck with Bergara.”

And with that, he was gone.


	10. it's supernatural season, baby!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> rule #9: if you ignore the ghosts, they'll leave you alone.

“This looks like Disney Land!” Shane remarked almost jovially. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they got cotton candy in there.”

“Uhh.” Ryan gave Shane a pointed and amused look. Shane didn’t seem to notice as he continued to stare over the wrought-iron fence at the Winchester Mystery House. They were both standing on the side of the road, waiting for the camera crew to set up.

“This is beautiful,” Shane breathed. It was true, the house was known for its size and its architectural curiosities. The stained glass windows and sloping roofs added a timeless feel to the seven-storey mansion. It looked as if it should belong in a picture book from an era left in the past. Shane couldn’t wait to see the inside. He could hardly believe the painted history of this house, the tales Ryan had narrated so animatedly about the supernatural activity on their way here. Shane just wanted a place to sit and architecture to admire.

“Yuk it up, man, yuk it up,” Ryan laughed a little. “You’re really enjoying this.”

“You sound a little nervous,” Shane remarked. There was a slight hint of apprehension in the other man’s voice. Shane found it curious, considering how Ryan looked like he could take care of himself. “What gives?”

“Uh, it’s probably nothing.” Ryan shrugged it off. He looked slightly more at ease, but Shane wasn’t so sure. He could sense the little nag of fear at the back of Ryan’s brain. He didn’t say anything though.

Ryan reverted back to the mysterious “theory voice” he always used when narrating theories and cases back in the office. Shane found it kind of alluring, lent his new jumpy friend a little air of mystery. “But when the lights go off, this may be a little different.”

Shane laughed. It was a little too late for him to be scared of the darkness. “We’ll see about that.” He adjusted the cap perched atop his head in an “after you” sort of gesture. Ryan made a face at him, and together they entered the property.

They were swallowed up by darkness as the sun set outside. Ryan hurriedly switched on a flashlight, allowing some light into the dark. He turned to Shane. “You are full of shit right now if you do not feel strange right now.”

“No, I don’t,” Shane admitted. It was the plain truth. He felt much more at ease for some reason, except his legs were tired and he wanted to sit down.

“You’re such a fucking shyster dude.” Ryan shook his head and laughed.

Shane shrugged with a smile. He couldn’t help but flash his true eyes in the darkness, where nobody could see what he was really doing. It helped him ease into the moment as he followed Ryan to Sarah Winchester’s bedroom. Ryan was muttering something about the hairs on the back of his neck standing up.

“Right now, we’re sitting in the bedroom of Sarah Winchester, who built this mansion as the result of a terrible tragedy,” Ryan said in his theory voice. Shane was barely listening, his eyes roving around the dim room to stare at the high ceilings and paintings on the wall. “Sarah actually passed away in this very room in that bed right there.” Ryan pointed to a bed on the other side of the room. Ryan’s breath caught for a moment. He could’ve sworn he had caught a glimpse of something black shifting around behind the bed. Shane noticed it too. Neither of them mentioned what they had seen.

Shane broke the tension, “Hell of a bed, I assure you in like half the places you’ve been, people have died there. People have probably died in the Chipotle we just ate at.” Ryan’s eyes widened whether in fear or amusement Shane would never know.

“Let’s just get into it,” Ryan said.

“Okay,’ Shane said.

Ryan started narrating the case files he had brought along that detailed the history of the Winchester Mystery House. There was something about tuberculosis and death and mediums and building a house that never stops building. Something about good and evil spirits too. Shane scoffed inside. Some of the mediums back in the days spat out nothing but bullshit. The confusing house layout may be meant to confuse ghosts or spirits or something but Shane knew the reality of it was that there were just more places for them buggers to hide, unless the buggers happened to be one of the slow-witted ones. Every demon knows ghosts are just wispy motherfuckers with too much time on their hands.

Shane and Ryan wheezed over some of the facts. Shane found himself inserting more witty comments and listening to the story. He loved it when he could challenge Ryan’s knowledge of the house, and often rebutted his arguments.

Ryan loved it when Shane tested his knowledge of the location, he didn’t do his research for nothing. He also loved how Shane’s almost-grand, lackadaisical mannerisms calmed his nerves a little. Every time he saw movement in the corner of his peripheral vision, he would jump a little inside, but he felt more relaxed when he leaned over and saw Shane laughing. It was as if Shane knew what he needed, knew what he was going through. Yet Shane couldn’t possibly know what was he was going through, could he?

The two of them headed towards the more “spiritually active” areas of the house. They were somewhere near the basement or something, Shane gathered. Shane didn’t forget his purpose here on the mortal plane just yet. He had played up his skepticism not only to challenge Ryan’s knowledge, but also to put the unexplained occurrences they ran into down with a little logic. He didn’t like going directly against Ryan’s own Sight, it made him feel like he was accusing Ryan of being delusional when he wasn’t. He just couldn’t let Ryan expose the paranormal side of things to the world just yet. He even had to talk to some of the annoyingly persistent ghosts to get them to chill out.

“Oh, the way the shadows play with you, with your mind,” Ryan quipped. He was a little on edge in the eerie darkness of this place. He was also starting to feel things. He could’ve sworn someone had tapped him on the shoulder, and the rest of the crew and Shane was in the next room when he felt it.

“What did you see?” Shane asked.

“Well, I didn’t see something, I heard something,” Ryan tried to explain himself. He had heard an ugly creak of the house from above. “I heard a noise right up there, came from there.”

“Probably bats,” Shane dismissed it. He looked up and gave the apparition perched up in the beams a nasty look with his true eyes. The floaty bastard jiggled off into the dark. Shane had nothing against ghosts, but the ones in this house were just extra annoying with a side of desperation. He was just glad Ryan’s sight didn’t extend to seeing in the dark. 

“That’s also a concern, I mean-“ Ryan desperately wanted to believe that it was bats too.

It was time for them to enter the seance room, a room where Sarah Winchester would allegedly communicate with the good spirits on a nightly basis for building guidance. Shane briefly wondered what the interior design tastes of the dead were like for a minute.

“Huh.” Ryan looked down at his camera. “I just took out a brand new battery, put it in, and it drained all the way to zero.” Ryan felt a little chill running up his spine. “This is highly unusual, I’ve never seen it do this before.”

Shane shrugged and stared down at the blasted thing too.

“I’m just gonna ignore you and fix the issue.”

Ryan and Shane then took turns to lock themselves in a little room.

“I’m gonna lock myself in here with a ghost!” Shane exclaimed. Ryan was much less excited about being left alone in a dark, haunting room. Shane had checked the place to ensure that there were no stray idiots around to spook his shorter counterpart.

Shane found Ryan’s fear a little charming. He wasn’t trying to be brave or cover up for his masculinity with excuses. As a demon, he secretly got a little kick out of Ryan’s fear, but he would never have done anything to make Ryan afraid. Not when the man was already scaring himself with his own brain and his abilities. As Shane, he secretly loved it when Ryan wheezed or looked more at ease because of the demon’s own mannerisms or remarks.

The only time he went against this claim was when he startled Ryan in the basement or whatever that place was called. The look on Ryan’s face was priceless. He looked like a constipated well frog or something! Shane just couldn’t stop laughing.

“You piece of shit, Shane,” Ryan couldn’t help but laugh as his heart raced. He was truly terrified for a moment there, Shane could feel it. He considered being guilty for a bit, but he decided that Ryan deserved it for stealing his food back at Chipotle.

Soon, they were back in Sarah Winchester’s room.

“Let me just ask you straight out, do you believe ghosts are real right now?” Ryan asked.

“Uh, no,” Shane said with a slight scoff-laugh.

“Why do you not believe ghosts are real?” Ryan persisted.

“I’ve never seen one,” Shane lied. He was glad he was good at lying. Demons tended to do that. The truth could be cumbersome at times like this.

“Okay, I mean there’s a lot of things that you can’t see that you, are real, I feel like-“ Ryan was trying to explain himself. Shane could feel the slight frustration building up in Ryan’s mind towards Shane. Ryan was trying to prove to Shane that ghosts were indeed real without telling him about The Sight, for he knew now that there was no way Shane would believe him.

“What can’t I see?” Shane replied.

“You can’t see gravity, that’s real.”

“Yeah, I can drop an apple,” Shane mused.

“Fuck.” Ryan wheezed as he leaned his head on his hand to think.

“Hey I guess you’ll never believe me until something happens,” Ryan sighed.

“Hey ghosts, tussle my hair!” Shane joked.

Ryan ended off the episode with a decent conclusion.

“Alright, let’s get the fuck out of here.” Ryan got up from his chair. _If only you knew, Shane Madej, if only you knew._

“Agreed,” Shane replied. _If only you knew, Ryan Bergara, if only you knew._


	11. rules are rules, demon!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> rule #10: don't let the past interfere with the task at hand.

“Why do you keep staring at Eugene?” Ryan swivelled around to face Shane.

“Oh, no reason,” Shane replied without skipping a beat. He was indeed staring intently at the ubi, so intently he could’ve bored holes in the back of his head with just his eyes. The whole time he had been here at Buzzfeed, he had been keeping tabs on the other demon.

Eugene had 234978 tabs open on his monitor. He appeared to be adding tasteful transitions to a video about wedding dresses, while also sending emails on another tab, switching tabs occasionally to toggle the music he was streaming on his headphones. He turned to talk to the other Try Guys at certain intervals, and occasionally interns who visited his desk. Nobody else seemed to notice the extent of multi-tasking the demon was doing. Shane couldn’t pinpoint if it was one of Eugene’s demonic abilities or whether he was just that fucking good at everything. He wouldn’t know, considering how the ubi was known to present many _unexpected_ surprises.

The first run-in Shane had with the other demon was interesting, to say the least. Shane was much more of a tryhard back then, thank god he had grown out of that phase. It was much different back then. Surprisingly enough, Eugene had been the one who had his shit all over the place. Shane would’ve known, they were close enough to be considered _friends_ after all. It was funny how things have changed in a matter of a few hundred years.

_I know you’re staring at me, Madej_. The voice came ringing in clear and true in Shane’s mind. Of course he knew. Eugene never once lifted his eyes off his monitor screen.

_Mm_ , Shane grumbled internally. He went back to staring at his own monitor, checking and editing the clips and footages for Unsolved. _Shouldn’t I be?_

_You’re sharper than everyone else gives you credit for_ , Eugene noted. _How about we catch up on old times?_ Eugene had gotten up from his desk and walked past Shane’s own desk towards the coffee machine. He had flashed a glance in Shane’s direction, although Shane never once looked up to meet his eyes. 

Shane felt a flash of anger tear through his thoughts. How could the other demon talk so casually about the past? Pretending as if he didn’t have anything to do with the accident. Shane blocked out all incoming thoughts from his head and slipped on his own headphones. Even listening to Ryan’s EVPs was better than whatever bullshit Eugene was shooting his way.

Shane pulled up a bunch of footage from the Winchester Mystery House. He was starting to enjoy the idea of Unsolved. When he first started out, he thought he would either have to pass out because of boredom or Ryan’s ramblings (both equally lethal devices), but he was actually starting to revel in the way Ryan dragged him to all these spooky locations. So far, they’ve been to at least three locations, namely the Winchester, the Island of the Dolls, and the Sallie House. The Winchester was a pleasant visit, not unlike visiting a shady motel that turns out to be very hospitable, save for the annoying floating housemates. The Island of the Dolls held its reputation, the dolls were very charming company albeit a little rude, but Shane was more concerned about walking into a spiderweb. The Sallie House had been the most excitable of it all. Demons and ghosts usually did not collaborate together well, but at that moment the stars aligned and the planets were in retrograde or something and granted Shane this very privilege of watching Ryan almost shit his pants because of a flickering flashlight.

Shane cut to all the parts where Ryan or himself had noted the presence of an entity in the room. He wondered if he should feel guilty betraying Ryan’s trust in his ability to maintain the integrity of the footage. Nope, he decided. He had a job to do and he was here to do it. He was struck by a sudden pull of duty to the present. He was here to stop Ryan from ruining everything, to stop Unsolved from ever cementing the beliefs of humans with concrete evidence, to stop the veil between humanity and the unexplained from falling apart. He shouldn’t be here idling around thinking of witty rebuttals to Ryan’s claims. He shouldn't be thinking too much about Ryan.

Shane got to work. He started picking apart the footage, examining every shadow and movement in the corner of every frame. He erased the parts that exhibited suspicious tendencies from them both, and cleaned up the whole video to make it almost _boring_. Shane the human could’ve made it big in the whole video shindig, his editing skills weren’t too shabby after all.

He couldn’t help but sneak glances at Ryan who was seated quietly beside him. Ryan, who was meticulously researching case files for their next episode. Ryan, who so quickly entrusted him with editing the footage. The nerd was blasting horror movie soundtracks through his headphones. Shane didn’t understand him sometimes, how could one man be so jumpy and yet still enjoy creepy music? Then again, Shane didn’t understand humans sometimes.

Meanwhile, Ryan was looking up the exorcism of Anneliese Michel. He was so throughly enraptured by the air of mystery surrounding this very case that he didn’t have time to notice Shane’s occasional glances thrown his way. That wasn’t the only reason why he didn’t notice Shane glancing at him. He was thinking about the encounters in the three locations they had been to so far. Every time Ryan saw something, he was convinced that Shane saw it too. Yet Shane had nothing but skepticism and logical explanations.

Ryan knew he had saw them. There had been many times when Ryan was _this_ close to saying everything. _Everything_. He didn’t care if he’d only started doing Unsolved with Shane for a few weeks, he didn’t care if he’d only considered Shane as a friend just a week ago. He would’ve sat down and told him _everything_. At times, it felt like Shane almost understood, but it didn’t make any sense! Shane didn’t know what was going on with him, and it was driving Ryan crazy.

But Shane knew, you see. Shane, who was a demon. Shane, who knew how Ryan felt about everything. Shane, who knew it was like to keep secrets. He could see it in the way Ryan leaned on his hands, how Ryan threw his head back and opened his mouth only to stop himself from revealing everything. He could feel the clinging desperation willing to spill out from Ryan, but his willpower and his pride held him back. Ryan knew that Shane would probably dismiss him as a madman, and he was right. Shane couldn’t let his own identity slip through and be discovered by a human out of all the things that could go wrong with his task.

Shane went back to scanning footage. He reversed and replayed every clip. Nothing stood out, until he reached one particular clip from the Sallie House. That moment when Ryan was nearly shitting his pants because of a flashlight. Ryan may have sounded like a dying chicken, but that didn’t distract Shane from the glimpse of something familiar. It was right there, when Ryan was gaping in shock. It only appeared when the camera jumped to Ryan. It was a shadow of the past. Darkness that was present in that moment, but nobody else had seemed to notice it. Only Shane. He couldn’t have forgotten it no matter how hard he tried.

He went over and over the same scene. It was only a second or two long, but there was no mistaking what it was. Shane’s eyes darkened at the ugly but familiar sensation. It was a flash of something among memories. A stab of pain dulled by the passing of time. Something unforgettable and regrettably intense. Shane would recognize that feeling anywhere.

It was the feeling of _evil_.


	12. no, not the veil again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> rule #11: don't let the past stop you from carrying out your task.

_He is running. The ground feels odd beneath him with every step, and someone is screaming. Orange splattered across the sky, merging with bright red and gold as they shed the hot and cold of the Veil. The blaze is burning up around him, twisting and unfurling like a phoenix, burning welts into his skin. They should never have stayed so long beyond the Veil._

_It felt like nothing he had ever felt before. All those tales of demons who have ventured past the Veil on their own accord, in their true form. Realer than ever. For the Veil consumes anything who dares betray its harmony, it soaks these beings with not light and not darkness, but an unholy combination of both, rendering them scarred and damaged. Permanently._

_He just kept running and running. He couldn’t stop running. If he slowed, the burning got worse, it consumed him with a raging surge. He keeps looking back. The other demon was slowing down. He tries to turn back. He can’t._

_He would never forget the jarring taste of the Veil, the volatile energy that seeped into his own like a leech. It took, it gave, it flooded. It ripped apart his own and stitched it back together again over and over. He should never have attempted to cross it. He should never have made hasty assumptions and disregarded the lore. It was all his fault._

_He should never have dragged his only friend into it, to burn along with him._

Eugene woke up with a start. His hand shot up to his arms instinctively. Beneath the illusory layer of human skin, he could still feel the ghostly sensation of burning. His fingers traced the dulled, but present outlines of the runic welts that lined his skin. They were scars. Reminders of something that he wished he had never done.

Sometimes, he could feel the human Eugene inside. A little pulse of something less demonic, of something warmer, but not searing. The human never had a chance of waking from his coma, but the feelings, memories, thoughts, had retained. He had taken quite an affinity to this side of him. It allowed him to _feel_ what other demons wouldn’t have felt. After all, demons usually quelled whatever mortal consciousness inhabited the vessel they planned on taking. Eugene didn’t have to do that. The coma had pushed the consciousness of this human, Eugene, deep inside. The demon didn’t have to fight it to stay inside the vessel.

Outside, the sky was still dark. He leaned up against the window pane, listening for the mortal sounds of the occasional car rolling past, and the drawing of blinds somewhere in a neighbour’s house. The nightmares always went away when he grounded himself. The darkness was cool and comforting.

When he reached deeper and drew out his true self, the lilting hum of the Veil showed itself too. It was no longer a stab, or a wound. It embedded itself deep inside, mingling with his own demonic energy, an intoxicating combination on good days. He had almost gotten used to it already, but he knew it would never stop feeling strange and foreign.

He couldn’t sleep. He was thinking instead. He was thinking about the past, thinking about how everything had came to be. He was thinking about his foolish and impulsive tendencies, how he had fucked everything up. He was thinking about Shane.

 

_He is calling out for help. The other demon just kept running and running. His hands are shaking so badly and the ground felt like it trembled with each step he takes. His vision was shifting in and out of focus, a pounding sounding through his skull._

_He called out again. The other demon didn’t seem to hear him. He just kept running and running, getting further and further away. He can’t keep up like this. He keeps going until he cannot feel the pull of the Veil ripping at his will anymore. Then he falls to the ground, the welts burning into his arms, sending jolts of scraping pain through his form._

_His friend hasn’t come back for him. He’s abandoned him to die in the middle of nowhere, completely at the mercy of the Veil. He lies motionless on the ground, his thoughts spinning into confusion and anger and hurt all in one._

_Then his vision snaps to black._

Shane woke up with a start. His eyes roved the dark room. Ryan’s steadied breathing came from the sleeping bag on the ground beside him. A few somethings darted into the shadows when he came to. The quiet lull of the sea rocked the Queen Mary.

He wasn’t running from The Veil. He wasn’t lying on the ground convulsing in pain. He wasn’t blacked out. He was on the Queen Mary with Ryan. Doing an episode for Unsolved. He was sitting upright in his sleeping bag in some dark room on board a ship. Not in Hell.

Shane sighed and wriggled out of his sleeping bag. He leaned over and checked if the short idiot was still alive. Thank god he still was. Shane had fallen asleep halfway through his guard duties. He knew his duty was to stop Ryan from fucking shit up, but that didn’t mean he wanted Ryan dead.

Ryan, who emitted countless mumblings and panicked ramblings when night fell and it was time for them to sleep. Shane _almost_ had to use his demonic powers of persuasion to coax the smaller man to stop talking and fall asleep. Even demons needed their beauty sleep.

Shane unfurled his wings. His eyes shone red in the dark of the room. Slipping into his true senses, the sound of waves caressing the hull sounded much fuller and closer. He could see better in the dark, and hear the quiet goings of the spiritual inhabitants aboard the ship. The history surrounding the ship wasn’t so far-fetched. There were more ghosts than Shane would prefer to have to take care of. He shed his human form and stretched out his limbs. It felt like awaking from a deep sleep, it felt like coming home. He had to slouch in the cramped smallness of the room, his horns scraping the plaster ceiling.

The thought crossed his mind that Ryan would be terrified of him in his real form. A pang of sadness briefly followed. He brushed it off and checked on Ryan again. Thankfully his cowardly compatriot was still fast asleep. He looked even smaller curled up in his sleeping bag. Shane had to resist the temptation to reach out a claw and brush away the tuft of hair falling over Ryan’s face. Ryan looked almost troubled. Shane leaned down and hovered a claw above him. He eased Ryan’s dreams into those of less troubled ones.

He wouldn’t let anything harm Ryan Bergara.


	13. dead on the inside doesn't count

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> rule #12: do not meddle with human deaths.

“This week on Buzzfeed Unsolved we explore Bobby Mackey’s music world which is seemingly a normal Kentucky bar but many believe it’s actually a portal to Hell,” Ryan started off the episode. They were sitting in a car in the middle of nowhere, and Shane was freezing his ass off. The air was frigid, and Ryan was rambling again. _What’s new?_

“As many of you know, or as many of you who watch this show know, I hate demons and I will only do one per season, so uh, this is my sacrifice for this season,” Ryan stated plainly. He turned to Shane.

Shane tried not to let it show on his face, but it came out as a little smirk-grimace thing. He looked like a constipated frog, probably. Of course Ryan didn’t like demons. What had he expected? He spoke up, “I didn’t know that was your rule.”

“It’s my one rule,” Ryan said conspiratorially. 

“Oh, thanks for breaking it,” Shane half-scoffed, a thousand thoughts running through that big old noggin of his.

“Would it have killed them to make this any closer to the city, does it have to be on the side of a weird, creepy road?” Ryan was right. Like Shane said, they were in the middle of practically nowhere, it was dark, the air was cold. He wasn’t feeling much, really. Then again, he didn’t feel much really everyday.

“We’d all like to live in the big fancy city, Ryan,” Shane replied.

“You know what I meant,” Ryan retorted. “And the worst part is, I don’t even have my holy water!” Ryan launched off into a ramble about how he had visited eight churches that day and yet still failed to procure even an ounce of holy water. Shane thought the man was batshit insane.

They approached the building. From the outside, it indeed looked like a nondescript, average Kentucky bar. Shane hadn’t been to many Kentucky bars, but he could tell what Ryan was talking about. A sign that said “Bobby Mackey’s” sat above the door, tacky brown letters smacked across a red rectangle.

“I open the door for you, you walk in first. How about that?” Ryan threw it out.

“We do this every time and you throw it down like it’s a challenge, but okay,” Shane said. Still, he indulged Ryan’s words and walked up to the door. He was holding the camera in one hand, prepared to angle it away from any potential incriminating evidence of the supernatural.

“Oh! That’s pleasant, it has a girl’s night out.” Shane flashed the light onto a few posters tacked to the wall. Ryan thought the man was batshit insane.

Ryan pointed his light to a warning sign near the ceiling. “Warning to our patrons, this establishment is reported to be haunted, management is not responsible and cannot be held liable for any actions of any ghosts or spirits on these premises,” he read it all out.

Shane scoffed. He was grinning a little. So far, he hadn’t seen any of the spooky buggers, but he could hear some of them shuffling around on the premises. This was one of the less spiritually-active locations they had been to. _So much for being a portal of Hell_ , he mused. He followed Ryan towards one of the rooms.

“Well, we’re in spooky huh?” Ryan said quietly. His heckles were creeping up and he could feel the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. It felt cliche to say it, but Ryan had a bad feeling about it all. He wielded his light in front of him like a weapon, and Shane noticed his tense stance.

Shane could smell Ryan’s fear slowly bubbling up inside him. He placed a hand on his shoulder, and swung the man in closer. Ryan smelled like aftershave and shampoo. Shane spoke softly enough just so that the camera couldn’t catch his voice but Ryan could hear him. “It’s going to be fine, Ryan,” he said reassuringly. “No ghosts are gonna jump out and get ya when I’m around!” It was the truth, after all. He started swinging his flashlight around wildly like a madman.

“You’re hot,” Ryan said. “Uh, not in that, other, you know, way,” he stuttered out once he realised his blunder. “You’re just warm, like really warm, temperature-wise! Let’s just sit down and I’ll tell you the history of this place.” Thank god Shane couldn’t see his cheeks flushing red in the darkness.

Shane was highly amused. “O-Okay.”

Ryan’s comment was quickly forgotten as he launched into a recounting of the history of Bobby Mackey’s. He quickly handed the conversation over to a lady named Laura Rolland, the manager or something. The lady went on about the history, and recalled anecdotes from the past about the place. There was something about her that Shane couldn’t quite put his finger on. The both of them listened, enraptured by her stories. Ryan was scowling, or frowning, or making some fucking weird expression. Shane, on the other hand, was almost amused. The ghosts or spirits here sounded like the kind he would love to punch all the way back to the damned depths of Hell. One of the perks of being a demon was that he got to put the dead back in their rightful places.

He was too busy listening to the lady to notice Ryan’s expression. As the camera panned away, Ryan’s panic was slowly stilling his expression into a grimace of sorts. He couldn’t peel his eyes off the ominous shadow dancing around the lady’s shoulders. He knew it could only mean one thing: death.

When Shane was fumbling with the camera on the sides and talking to TJ, he slipped over to Laura. He tried to strike up some conversation with her about about the origins of Bobby Mackey’s, but his hand was sweating badly, even in the cold. When Laura was fully going on about how the place was built, he stuck his hand into the blackness that surrounded her form.

_Ryan looked around. He was standing on the side of the same dirty, dark road that they had walked to Bobby Mackey’s from. Except that the sky was lit up with stray bolts of electricity. He moved away from a tree instinctively._

_Laura Rolland, the manager of the bar was walking down the side of the road. She didn’t seem to see him. Instead, she looked right through him. She didn’t seem to be too bothered by the lightning storm. She seemed preoccupied. He tried waving to get her attention but it was no use. Why did he even try? He knew they couldn’t see him. No one ever saw him._

_The woman was walking towards the same tree he had moved away from. It was like watching a shitty slow-motion montage of poorly stitched clips. Ryan could only watch from one side as the lightning streaked down from the sky, striking the branch with a spark, splitting the wood and the leaves, desiccating the old, rotting bark until the whole thing came crashing down onto her head. There were two thuds, one when the branch came splitting down on her skull, and another one when her body slammed against the slick, wet pavement. The red mingled with the rainwater that soaked into her cold skin, leaving him standing alone on the side of the road._

Ryan snapped back into the present. He felt like he was going to be sick. Laura was still talking about Bobby Mackey’s in front of him. He excused himself and rested his arms against a bar tabletop.

“Hey Ryan, you good?” Shane came over and asked. The way he said “Ryan” was so warm and nice and welcoming. He looked so sincere and caring that Ryan felt sicker to the stomach. He didn’t want Shane to see him like this. He wouldn’t understand. Ryan pushed him away a little too hard. Shane took the cue and stepped back.

That’s when it hit. Shane recognised the same churning feeling again. The feeling as the one he had recognised on the Sallie House footage back at Buzzfeed. It was like stepping into a whirlwind of sensations, the hot and the cold, the dark and the light, the push and the pull. It was like he was back at the Veil. There was something else too, something familiar, something demonic and passionate. He could feel it, he could feel it inside Ryan.

It took a few moments before Ryan could stand up again. He had to find a way to save her. He had to find a way to save her without losing his own sanity or having Shane and the rest of the crew deem him insane. He had to tell her. Somehow.

But for now, he had to continue on with the episode. He almost laughed at the irony. He started Unsolved to prevent cases like this. Now, he had to carry on no matter how shaken he was. No use scaring Shane or having him think something was up. Ryan’s voice was shaky as he introduced the rest of the rooms.

The episode went on as planned, without much of a hitch except for that one time where Ryan almost tripped over a loose floorboard. Shane managed to catch him and the both of them fell to the ground in a tangle of limbs. Each was glad the other couldn’t see them flushing red in the darkness.

It was time for Ryan to speak up. For all those failures, for all those deaths he couldn’t stop, he never stopped hoping that one day he could do something. He wouldn’t just sit around and do nothing. He had been watching from the sidelines for way too long. He was acting awfully normal with the knowledge of a death that would happen right after they exited that damned bar. He felt so panicky that he had transcended a new level of calm. It was amazing. How was he going to tell Laura without sounding like a stark raving lunatic?

Shane knew what Ryan intended to do. He also happened to know that Ryan would not succeed, at least not without the help of a hell being. Humans didn’t have the power to meddle in mortality affairs. _Ryan will accept that fact someday, he’ll learn_. Shane sighed, he wish he could tell Ryan that it was useless. Demons like himself help to ease lost souls into their respective afterworlds, but Shane hasn’t done that himself either in a shit ton of years. Shane didn’t really like to deal with souls. It was a messy affair.

“Laura, I gotta ask, you wanna come into town with us?” Ryan went straight for it. “Have a little drink or two?” He was wringing his hands.

“I’m, married.” Laura was laughing.

“Uh, no I don’t mean it like that I was just wondering if you would, you know, uh, god I sound stupid, talk about Bobby Mackey’s?” Ryan instantly regretted it. Shane was staring at him with that dumb smile plastered across his giant face. “Just a drink or two?”

“Sorry but, I’ve got an errand to run near here,” Laura replied. She was already looking bored with Ryan. Ryan started to shake. He couldn’t stop her.

It happened in a moment of minutes. Laura walking out the bar. Laura walking into the storm. Lightning streaking down from the sky. The tree branch crackling. The tree branch falling and cracking upon her head.

The whole crew had rushed out of the bar upon hearing the sickening sound. TJ looked away, Devon looked as if she was about to puke, Mark rushed up to the lady lying on the floor. Someone called an ambulance. Ryan knew it wasn’t of any use. The lady was dead. Ryan was just standing there, gape-jawed, his mind numb. He felt sick. The world was starting to spin. He couldn’t feel anything. 

Ryan started to fall. Shane was there to catch him again. This time, Ryan didn’t get off Shane in a hurry. He let himself sink into the arms of the taller man. He didn’t know whether to sob or to laugh at the irony of it all. He managed to choke out, “Shane.”

“Ryan.” Shane pulled him in closer. He kept still and silent, he didn’t know what to say to make Ryan feel any better. He could feel Ryan’s rush of distraught and guilt punching against his own consciousness. It wasn’t a very pleasant feeling at all. Shane had witnessed many deaths, and have often commented on the mortal frailty of humans. His whole life, death has always been the next step. For hell beings like himself, death wasn’t fully impossible, but there was no promise of an afterlife like human beings. He grew up with tales regaling the human feelings of happiness, excitement, but he had never knew them, and nor had he knew guilt or sadness or distress. He didn’t know how humans dealt with it. How they dealt with feeling all this pain and negativity. It was awful, and he didn’t like it at all.

That’s when Shane did the unthinkable.

He revived a dead human.


	14. we need to talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> rule #13: don't talk about your feelings with another demon.

_“Ryan!” Someone is calling his name again._

_He is back at the sea cliff, the one that overlooks the frothing, roaring sea that bites at the cold wind. He peers over the edge. It’s a long way down. He shudders a bit and steps back. The cliff is shrouded in fog, and he can barely see anything beyond two steps in any direction._

_The sky lights up, a light show of fiery tones that shoots across the darkened sky. Not again. Ryan shrinks back in terror, his eyes caught in the effervescent bursts of color. He scrambles back, away from the edge of the cliff, his hands scraping over cold wet rock. It’s happening again. Please don’t be happening again._

_The sky is on fire. It looks like the apocalypse, the end of the world, as dramatic as Ryan ever thought it would be. He doesn’t want to look, but he can’t peel his eyes off the gold tinges that dance through the orange and red flames. The sky is bulging, like it was holding its breath and now it’s finally ready to burst. The wind howls with a renewed vigor, and Ryan shudders again. The tide is rising higher than it could possibly rise, swallowing the cliff inch by inch, the water bashing against the slippery rock._

_The sky was coming closer, closer to Ryan. No, he tried to move away, this can’t be happening again. He’s stuck. He can’t seem inch any further backwards. The sky throbs with pulses of heat, and something like lightning streaked across the clouds. He recoiled._

_That’s when it strikes. A quick lash of something he couldn’t visually describe, it was like air, like electricity, like water, like stone, like fire, like ice, all at once. Translucent and shimmery, deep and dark, slippery and gold, it is everything, and nothing at all. It lashes out at Ryan, and it is a feeling he can never forget._

_It tears his insides out and gores his soul, baring it for the waves and the rock and cold, and he is shivering and convulsing inside, paralyzed inside. The worst part was, Ryan could see everything, he could feel everything. And everything hurts._

_He screams._

 

Ryan screamed himself awake. He was fine now, except for the fact that his heart felt like he was about to explode out of his chest. He was drenched in sweat, as if he’d just step out from a sauna, or a tropical storm. He was back in his bed, alone, in his own room. Not on a sea cliff. Not in a haunted location. He was in his own bed, under his own covers, on his own pillow. He slumped back against the bed.

That’s right, Laura would be okay. She was unconscious but alive. It had never happened before, Ryan didn’t know whether he had anything to do with it, whether he had helped, or whether he had just seen wrongly. Either way, she was safe, in the hospital.

Ryan sighed. He wished Shane was there with him.

 

 

“Come out of the closet, Madej, I know you’re there.”

Shane grumbled as he stepped out of the closet. The place was clean and almost obsessively tidy, smelling of sandalwood and floor polish. There was a single light flicked on above the bed, warm and yellow. The ubi sat on the bed, never once looking up from the paperback in his hands. He chuckled, “If you wanted to see me in bed, you could’ve just asked.”

“I didn’t know you could read.” Shane scowled at the other demon. He didn’t seem to notice, continuing to flip the pages of the book with a single claw.

“Ha, ha.” Eugene got up and gingerly laid his book on the nightstand. “What is it this time?” He fired a look in Shane’s direction as if he had expected Shane to come tumbling out of his closet at 1am in the middle of the night.

“Could you put on a shirt first?” Shane sighed.

“Distracting, I know,” Eugene joked, slipping on a shirt that Shane tossed him. Shane ignored him.

“It’s about Ryan,” Shane started, watching Eugene’s face carefully.

“I gathered as much.” Eugene shrugged.

“How did you- never mind, just, just listen,” Shane continued. He took a deep breath. He was going to do something entirely new. Something so foreign and never done before. He was almost terrified of the prospect. He was going to talk about his problems. Bringing up the past was never easy, especially to the one person he didn’t want to talk to about the past, but he had to do it. For Ryan’s sake. Because something was very wrong with Ryan. He rubbed his temples, and continued, “Remember the Veil?”

Eugene ugly coughed. He looked back up to meet Shane’s eyes, and for a moment Shane saw the golden flame in Eugene’s eyes he had loved so much. They were the eyes of a demon he had once loved. The eyes of his best friend, and something more. They broke their gaze, and Eugene coughed again, this time awkwardly.

“The Veil, yes.” He folded his arms across his chest, almost defensively.

There wasn’t any easy way to put this. Shane opened his mouth to say a few words, only to have them all tumbling backwards into his incoherent voice. He thought for a few seconds. They were in no rush to go anywhere and this was important. “I think we weren’t the only ones that got hit by the Veil.” There, he said it.

Eugene was quiet. He pulled one hand back through his messy hair, more in an “oh shit” kind of way rather than in confusion. He knew exactly what Shane was talking about. He was thinking. He glanced over at Shane, the both of them exchanging a look.

“This is bad,” Eugene said as if Shane didn’t already know how fucking terrible the situation was already. “Are you sure?”

Shane sighed in exasperation and nearly slapped the wall. “Do you think I’m fooling around?” He almost seethed. Does the ubi even understand the seriousness of the situation?

“I know I know I’m just,” Eugene sighed. “Damn.”

They sat in silence for a while.

“I’m sorry.”

“What?” Out of all the ways that the conversation could’ve played out, Shane had not expected an apology to be one of them.

“Goddammit Madej do I have to-“ Eugene threw up his hands in mock frustration. “I said I’m sorry.” He looked genuine, sincere. Shane didn’t know whether it was a glamour.

“Sorry?” Shane breathed.

“For everything,” Eugene said through clenched teeth. For what it was worth, Shane knew how Eugene especially had a hard time talking about this. Shane may have been angry at the other demon, but he wasn’t an asshole. “The Veil, Hell, everything.”

That was as far an apology as anyone would have expected from the ubi. Shane mulled over his words for a bit, and he nodded. “Okay.”

“The Veil hit Ryan,” Eugene said quieter. “Because of me.”

Shane could’ve punched Eugene. Held him up the collar and hit the smile right off his pretty face. But he didn’t. Instead, he stared blankly at the other demon, willing him to go on. An explanation or something.

“The Veil is everything and nothing at once,” Eugene continued with increasing difficulty. His breathing was rattled. “Time, space, mortals, hell, death, everything and nothing.”

Shane didn’t quite understand. He continued to stare. It kind of reminded him of the days when Eugene would regale him with tales and stories of the Veil. He kind of reminded him of Ryan reading the case files for Unsolved. Right, Ryan. He snapped out of it. “So what?”

“When a hell being enters, no when we, entered the Veil, the Veil takes, and it gives, it’s like the whole particle displacement theory or something?” Eugene explained. “The force that we used to get there, it has to go out somewhere.”

“And that somewhere is Ryan?” Shane asked, disbelieving. For once, he actually felt like the skeptic he had always played in Unsolved.

“Yes.”

“But why?”

“Now that, you have to figure out for yourself,” Eugene replied. “And for Ryan.”

“Doesn’t that mean his-“ Shane gestured to his eyes. “The Veil.”

Eugene nodded almost solemnly.

“Oh god.”

Eugene sighed and got off his bed. He wandered out of the room, tinkering with something outside. Shane wondered if he should wait. He did, and Eugene came back in.

“I revived a human.”

Eugene froze. “You what?”

“You heard me.”

“Revived? As in brought back to life? Human, as in dead human?”

Shane nodded.

“Fucking hell, Madej,” the other demon swore.

“Don’t give me shit for it, you fell in love with a human!” Shane protested.

Eugene tensed. Shane grinned. He was right.

“Stay out of my business,” Eugene bristled. It was just like the days, they’ve reverted back to teasing each other. “I do like him yes.” Shane didn’t even need clarification to know which “him” Eugene was referring to.

“Well, guess we’re fucked,” Eugene sighed.

“What’s new?” Shane almost smiled at Eugene, but he caught himself.

Eugene went back to reading on his bed. Shane shrugged, and opened the closet door. He walked inside, and shut the door, returning to his own closet in his own room. Demon teleportation was weird. Eugene stared after the door.

“Damn.” He shook his head.


	15. hell's hot for good reason so please

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> rule #14: don't try feeling what humans feel. reason undisclosed.

The insides of the building dripped with decay and must. Darkness pooled in every corner, the building old, creaky, and deathly quiet. The walls crept with moss and dirty green, the paint shaved off in chips. Every step sent a flurry of dust and must flying. It was so comically horrifying that even TJ was a little iffy about the whole affair. Shane was as usual, chill with it all, and Ryan as usual, was a little jumpy.

“This is it, the Waverly Hills Sanatorium, or hospital, yeah,” Ryan breathed.

Shane thought it was pretty impressive, decay and all.

“The look of this building is so imposing,” Ryan remarked. He started out a little nervous about the whole affair, and now it’s growing inside him. His fingers were a little shaky. He swallowed the fear and continued towards the building.

“I’m surprised you’re conscious right now,” Shane mused.

“I’m keeping it together for now.” Ryan looked down at his feet. He didn’t notice Shane staring intently at him. Shane didn’t know how he felt about it, but he just wanted to tell Ryan that it would be okay. He was around, and he was a demon, he was the scariest thing around for miles. Yet he couldn’t tell Ryan that. He didn’t know how to feel, he couldn’t feel, he was a demon after all, but he still felt a little tinge of something. Plus, he sucked at words.

“I think we should let ‘em know that we’re entering, you know just give them a quick-“ Shane angled himself towards the hospital. “Hey ghouls! The boys are here.”

Ryan momentarily forgot his nerves and managed to wheeze even in the eerie darkness outside the imposing facade. He felt slightly better, just slightly. At least he wasn’t going in alone, he was going in with Shane. Well, and the rest of the crew of course.

The episode started off on a decent note. Ryan managed to breeze through the intro without his voice shaking (too much), and Shane did his little shake of the head in response to “Are ghosts real?”. _Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all_ , Ryan reassured himself. _You’re used to this by now, you’ll do fine_.

“As you could see, this is the place where nightmares are made.” Ryan gestured to the long, dark, empty corridor. He could hear dripping sounds further down the length of the corridor, but he didn’t want to look in case he saw something he didn’t want to see.

Shane looked back into the dark. Something oily slithered back into the dark. Shane remarked thoughtfully, “It’s very dark, it’s a dark hallway.”

“I just don’t-“ Ryan almost slapped himself. Just Shane being good ol’ Shane again. “I don’t get any of this.” He gestured towards Shane as a whole. Sometimes he wanted to slap Shane, sometimes he wanted to slap himself. Sometimes he wanted to grab Shane by the collar of his stupid jean jacket and tell him all about what he can see. Shane laughed.

After a brief rundown of the history by Ryan, they headed deeper into the building. Ryan shuddered. And they thought the outside was bad. Some walls looked as if the paint had been clawed off, dust and web and shreds clustering in every corner. Ryan felt something brush up against his head at some point. Upon illumination, he saw that it was a gnarled rope hanging from the top of the stairwell. The end of it shaped into the form of a noose, webs tangling around the loose fibres poking out. Ryan was just glad he couldn’t see anybody attached to the noose. The gnawing sensation he felt was slowly crawling up to his chest. There was a unsettling quiet that pooled around the shaky foundations of the building, not unlike the unease settling in his stomach.

While Ryan was shaking a little, Shane was busy. He trailed behind the group, slightly behind Ryan, so that nobody could see him warding off the ghosts. There were a few nasty buggers in the place, faces drooping and skin falling off. They were mostly just pesky, nothing that Shane couldn’t handle.

“I feel awful right now,” Ryan admitted.

“It looks like one of the Conjuring films,” Shane commented, a tone so casual he may as well have been talking about the weather. “I got a little spoiler for ya, everything in the building is going to look like this.”

“Yeah, I think so,” Ryan replied. “Great help, I’m sure.”

Shane laughed.

“We’ve really done it now haven’t we?” He looked up at Shane who was standing ever so casually on the stairwell. _Fuck, now he’s even taller_. Shane looked back down at Ryan and laughed. The two exchanged a moment of silence, or more like a “we’re really doing this, huh?” type of scenario. Until TJ marched in and told them to catch up.

Everything went relatively well so far, as well as a visit to a hospital that housed some of the deadliest cases of tuberculosis in history could go. Ryan hadn’t exploded or died yet, and Shane was still rattling on about how ghosts weren’t real. Everything was going just fine.

Then it was time to enter The Body Chute. It was exactly what it sounded like, a chute made for bodies. The entrance to the place was a short dark tunnel, low ceilings creeping with mildew and all sorts of nasty things. The walls felt like they were closing up the deeper they went in, and every noise shot off the walls in garbled echoes. All colour has been seeped dry from the bare walls, ugly stains running down the sides.

“Oh my god, this is awful.” Ryan gulped. They entered through a rusty metal grille gate that was slightly ajar. The body chute was just one long dark and echo-y corridor that reeked of death. “Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.”

Shane was laughing. He had expected the place to stink a little bit more or something. 

“Are you fucking kidding me dude?” Ryan turned to Shane.

“This is like Satan’s cement butt hole,” Shane said.

_Thank god Shane’s here_. At least Shane made everything tolerable, even with his stubbornly skeptical ass. Ryan was also thankful for the fact that he hadn’t seen too many ghosts loitering around the place. He wouldn’t want to explain his sudden terrified outbursts. He started to fall into step with Shane. They walked to the end of the tunnel.

It wasn’t the end of the tunnel.

“Oh my god, dude.” Ryan stopped short of an incline and angled his flashlight down into the dark sloping tunnel. “Oh my god!”

“Holy shit!” Shane looked down. Looked like a long way down.

“How far does this go? We going to hell?” Ryan exclaimed.

_If only we_ were _going to hell,_ Shane thought. “Let’s find out!”

“If there’s anybody down here that maybe hated this tunnel, let us know, make your presence know,” Ryan called out to nobody in particular. “Preferably now, and not when we get to the bottom of this tunnel.” He was bloody hoping nothing showed up. Ryan wanted something to show up so badly so that he could prove the world wrong, but he also didn’t like being spooked. It was a confusing situation. He was a confused individual. 

They reached the end of the sloping tunnel. A plastic sheet covered the tunnel from wall to wall, ceiling to ground.

“Oh my god, are you serious?” Ryan sighed.

He tried climbing over the debris on the ground and pass through the opening in the side of the plastic sheet. Maybe there was something in there worth discovering.

A strange whirring noise started up.

“Whoop! Whoop, whoop!” Ryan started and backed out in a hurry.

“What is that? The wind?” Shane was laughing.

“I don’t know what the fuck that was,” Ryan stated, a little harried.

“What if I go up there, and you stay down here, and we turn our lights off, and see if we hear anything?” An idea hit Shane.

“What if you go fuck yourself? How about that?” Ryan was a hundred percent sure that Shane suggested it just to see if Ryan would shit his pants.

Shane had suggested it just to see if Ryan would shit his pants.

Ryan agreed, surprisingly, even he himself was surprised. He needed to prove to Shane that he was fully capable of handling himself in a supposedly haunted location (which he wasn’t even sure about because there have been no spooky occurrences thus far), and that he wouldn’t shit his pants.

“Alrighty then.” Shane shrugged and started to walk back up the body chute.

Then it hit him. The familiar tug of energy to energy, it was the darkness that was calling. The same feeling that he felt, back in the office, back in Bobby Mackey’s, it was in here with him, and with Ryan. It was back. Shane was caught by the pull of ugly familiarity, and he slowed to a stop.

“So are we doing this or what?” Ryan asked from behind.

_Ryan will be fine, there’s nothing in here that can hurt him_. Shane turned around to face Ryan. He smiled. Ryan’s eyes looked as if they were about to pop out of his head. Shane almost reached out to put a hand on Ryan’s shoulder but he didn’t. He settled for saying, “It’s okay, you’ll be great!”

“How long am I staying down here?” Ryan called out from the bottom of the tunnel.

“A minute!” Shane called out from the top of the tunnel.

“A minute?” Ryan was not so sure he could do this. “Fuck!”

“Okay Ryan you can do this,” Ryan said out loud enough for anything nearby to hear but not loud enough for Shane to hear. “All you fuckers better stay away from me.”

“Alright, lights off in three-“

“Two!” Shane called out.

“One,” they both said at the same time. The lights went off, plunging the both of them into pitch black. The air seemed to freeze.

“Oh, god.” Ryan was sweating now. “Oh, no, no, no, no. I hate this.”

There was no response from Shane above.

“Shane?”

No response.

“Shane!” Ryan called back up. _Fucking hell_. The hairs on the back of his neck started prickling up.

“This is sort of beautiful!” Shane’s voice came echoing down the chute.

Ryan sighed. He felt a little at ease after knowing that Shane was still there and didn’t abandon him like he did at Chipotle’s earlier on. He would never forgive Shane for stealing his burrito. He hoped he could even live to see another day where he would never forgive Shane for stealing his burrito. _Oh god._ He was stuck to the spot. He closed his eyes and tried to breathe, if he can’t see in the dark maybe he couldn’t see whatever was in the dark.

“I didn’t even get to do all the things on my bucket list,” he uttered.

“Shut up,” Shane’s voice came echoing through.

“You shut up,” Ryan managed to answer back. _That idiot_.

What could only be described as a _scree_ noise came scraping through the tunnel. Sounded like it could’ve been a bird, or some really loud mouth. _Hells, it could’ve even been Ryan_ , Shane thought.

“Did you hear that?” Shane piped up.

There was no answer from Ryan.

“Ryan?” Shane said a little louder.

Still no answer. Shane was getting a little concerned.

“Ryan!” Shane almost shouted. The creeping sensation was back, taunting him from the darkness. Shane could _feel_ it. He was feeling something. And it felt terribly wrong.

“Ryan!” Shane shouted for real this time, his voice urgent and shrill.

“Is it a minute yet?” Ryan shouted back. “Please tell me it’s been a minute!”

Shane heaved a silent sigh of relief. He rested his head on his knees. _If anything had happened to that fucker I would’ve-_

“Hello?” Ryan called back, a little uncertain this time.

“Okay, it’s been a minute.” Shane snapped back to the present.

Ryan started to run. He didn’t like the thought that something was watching him at the bottom of that chute. He fumbled with his flashlight and his camera as he ran. His shoes thudded against the ground, breathing heavy. “Get me the fuck out of here! I’m leaving, goodbye ghost at the bottom!”

He crashed into Shane. They fell to the ground, Ryan’s elbow digging hard into Shane’s ribs. Shane couldn’t stop their fall in time, and Ryan fell down right on top of Shane. The cameras and flashlights came clattering down on the hard ground. Ryan was breathing really close to Shane’s face. It felt really warm for a bit. They laid there for a few long seconds, neither able to process what was going on. Shane’s back was pressed against the hard ground, and Ryan’s head had collided with his shoulder. All Shane could think of was how Ryan smelled like pillows and shampoo. Ryan was just so stunned and out of breath that he couldn’t think or move.

“Ow,” Shane muttered.

“Oh, sorry dude, uh-“ Ryan tried to get up off Shane, but he almost accidentally kneed him in the stomach. “I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry.”

Mark coughed awkwardly in the back.

Then that _scree_ sound came again.

Shane felt the same tug, slightly stronger this time round. The whirlwind of sensations, pulling and churning. It was coming from the darkness, and it was coming from behind Ryan.

Shane wasted no time. He grabbed Ryan by the wrist and dragged him along. He didn’t care what anyone else thought, they were getting the fuck out of there. Ryan stopped halfway and looked back at Mark, who was running behind them and trying to stop the camera from filming.

“C’mon!” Shane beckoned at Mark and Ryan.

“What, what?” Ryan was confused. Did Shane actually look _scared_?

He didn’t have time to think though, because Shane was getting further and further away. Must be those noodle legs, Ryan actually thought to himself. He could’ve slapped himself if he wasn’t trying to keep up.

“Shall we move on?” TJ asked when they emerged from the body chute.

“Yeah, we should,” Shane replied as if nothing had ever happened.

“Yeah, I guess we should.” Ryan looked over at Shane.

He looked like Shane again, skeptical, logical, comforting Shane.

 

“The famous 502.” Ryan stated. He was not excited to be there. Visiting a creepy sanatorium in the middle of practically nowhere was unnerving enough already, but spending the night was crossing the line. They would have been idiots to spend the night there. Yet they were idiots. “I guess this is where we’re fucking sleeping because we’re idiots, and this is what we like to do.” This was not what Ryan liked to do.

“For fuck’s sake, someone jumped to their death on this level and you’re not even a little bit scared right now?” Ryan asked, disbelieving.

Shane shrugged. His face was the perfect picture of nonchalance. He, in fact, wasn’t even a little bit scared. He wasn’t feeling anything then, just taking in the view. There were city lights in the distance, and he was kind of distracted.

“I don’t get you sometimes.” Ryan shook his head and smiled a bit. 

_Neither do I Ryan Bergara,_ Shane smiled a bit too. _Neither do I_.

The stories about hearing kids giggling and stuff from the lady that owned the place did nothing to soothe Ryan’s nerves. All he could think about was eyes and things staring at him from the darkness while he set up his sleeping bag alongside Shane.

“Well, this place I’ve realised is different for a number of reasons,” Shane said.

“Uh huh.” Ryan was wrestling with his sleeping bag.

“One, you know, if we were at the Sallie House, it’s like ‘oh, run out the front door’,” Shane continued. Ryan lay down on the ground and bundled himself in his sleeping bag. Shane was sitting upright in his own sleeping bag, looking down at Ryan, whose mind seemed to be far away from there. “Whereas here…”

“You’re like, trapped,” Ryan completed the sentence.

“Yeah, we’re on the roof more or less.” Shane lay down in his own sleeping bag.

Ryan wriggled around in his sleeping bag until he came to face Shane. He couldn’t see Shane, but Shane could see Ryan. Being a demon didn’t come without its perks. Ryan’s eyes darted around wildly, as if searching for something in the darkness. He wouldn’t find anything, thanks to Shane. Shane may have been an irresponsible shit at times, but he did his job well.

“No ghosts in here, just you and me, baby!” Shane exclaimed a little too gleefully. He was suddenly aware of how close he was to Ryan.

Ryan wheezed softly. “That rhymed.”

“So it did,” Shane whispered back.

“Go to sleep,” Ryan turned onto his back, eyes facing the ceiling.

“I already am.” Shane rolled over to his side.

 

“Oh my god did you hear that?” Ryan’s voice ran through the small space.

“No, what are you talking about?” Shane mumbled, half-asleep. He had heard that. Ryan’s voice wasn’t the one that jarred him awake.

Ryan fished a flashlight out and started swinging it wildly about the darkness. Shane’s eyes were closing. He didn’t want to deal with this shit right now. Demons may not need sleep, but he sure as hell wanted to sleep.

“Are you serious? You didn’t hear that?” Ryan asked.

“I didn’t hear anything,” Shane stated plainly.

“I heard a whisper,” Ryan said. Shane thought it sounded more like the _scree_ noise they had heard in the body chute. He was a little more awake now, reminded of the feeling that shadowed him and Ryan in that place.

“No, you didn’t hear a whisper,” Shane tried to persuade Ryan to let it go. He could only deal with it if Ryan wasn’t conscious and awake.

“I swear to God I heard a whisper,” Ryan insisted.

“You know, there’s a lot of wind moving around right now,” Shane retorted.

“Nope, nope,” Ryan retorted right back.

“You sure it wasn’t just a car in the distance?”

“No, it sounded like someone saying something,” Ryan insisted.

“You sure it wasn’t just a dream?”

“Aw man, did I just freak myself out again?” Ryan said a little softer this time. He sounded a little sad. Shane turned to look at him. Ryan said to him, “You swear you didn’t hear it?”

Shane laughed. He didn’t know if he should feel bad lying to Ryan. Then again, he was doing Ryan a favour by calming his nerves. “Just go to sleep, Ryan.”

It worked for a bit. Until Ryan woke him up screaming.

“Ryan, what the fuck?”

Shane leaned over and saw Ryan burying himself deeper into his sleeping bag. His eyes were wide, staring over at something in the far corner of the drafty room. Ryan couldn’t speak. He couldn’t even move. It’s like his words were stuck in his throat, his throat taut and scratchy. He was frozen in place. By fear. Shane saw what Ryan was so terrified of. 

Shane couldn’t tell if it was a he or a she but he didn’t really care. It didn’t really have a face, unless a pile of ragged skin and jutting bones could be called a face. Half of its head looked like it had been smashed in, the brain matter spilling out of a cracked skull. It was almost leering at Ryan, an oily tongue sloshing around in its split-open mouth. 

Shane put a hand on Ryan’s shoulder. Ryan was shaking, his shoulder knotted and his posture tense. He pulled Ryan in closer, one hand around the other man’s back. With Ryan’s head in his arms, Shane’s eyes eclipsed into red, dilating out over the white of his human eyes. It didn’t take long for Shane to scare the unwanted intruder away. It was probably the woman who jumped to her death from the place. Shane didn’t see any need to banish her if she was just curious.

“Ryan?” He whispered. Ryan was unmoving, his head buried deep into Shane’s arms, his short breaths coming in fast and ragged. Ryan held out his hands in front him, fingers locking into place. He tried to look up at Shane, but he could feel his throat threatening to close up, the itchy pain creeping up at the back. He couldn’t see Shane looking back at him, but his fingers dug deeper into Shane’s arm, clinging at Shane. His legs wouldn’t budge either, it’s like he was paralyzed. Shane recognised the symptoms.

Ryan was having a panic attack.

“Ryan!” Shane shook the other man. Ryan wasn’t responding, his breathing getting even shakier. Ryan’s grip still dug into Shane’s arms, but his fingers were locked in place. He couldn’t breathe. Shane pulled him in, “Ryan, can you hear me?”

Ryan tried to nod. Shane saw it. “Ryan, if you can hear me, I need you to breathe. _Breathe_.” Ryan tried to still his shaky breathing. His fingers were still locked in place.

“ _Breathe_ Ryan Bergara, I need you to breathe for me, can you do that?”

Ryan nodded. HIs breathing was stilling a little, and he didn’t feel like he was about to have a heart attack anymore, but he couldn’t pry his fingers off Shane’s arms. He tried to focus on taking air into his lungs. His throat was drying up fast.

“Water.” Shane tried to give Ryan some water. He managed to drink a little before sputtering and almost choking on the water. Shane patted down his back. “It’s going to be okay, _you’re_ going to be okay.”

Ryan nodded. He managed to still his breathing, calming down little by little. He didn’t feel like he was about to die anymore. He was still in Shane’s arms, his own arms wrapped around Shane’s. He thought about pulling away but he wasn’t sure if that was the right thing to do or not. He didn’t _want_ to pull away from Shane’s arms. Ryan felt weird and tingly all over. Like after a bad case of pins and needles. Shane’s breathing was steady and rhythmic. Ryan felt calmer listening to his breathing. They lay there in the darkness for a while, neither of them talking, just breathing.

“Shane?”

“I’m here,” Shane said, his voice flat and calm.

Ryan couldn’t see Shane in the dark. He didn’t know if Shane could see him. Shane could see Ryan, but he knew Ryan couldn’t see him. Ryan could only feel the warm pulse of Shane, whose arms were currently wrapped around his own.

“Thank you,” Ryan breathed, so quietly he wasn’t sure if Shane could hear him.

Shane did.

Ryan was thinking as he lay there in the dark. He wasn’t so scared anymore, listening to Shane’s steady pulsing and breathing. He didn’t see it anymore. He didn’t feel it staring at him anymore. It was gone, because of Shane.

It didn’t take too long for Ryan to fall asleep with Shane’s help.

Shane was not asleep yet, surprisingly. He was thinking too. He felt something back there, when Ryan was breathing too fast and too short, when Ryan was panicking. Shane _felt_ something. He was mulling it over. Thinking about it.

And he had made a terrifying revelation.

Shane was _scared_.


	16. oh shit.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> rule #15: never fall in love with a human.

Ryan didn’t talk about what he saw that night in Waverly Hills Sanatorium. Shane didn’t ask about it either. It was all such a blur, for all Ryan knew it could’ve been a nightmare. Yet he could still feel the warm touch of Shane beside him, the quiet assurance of his presence in that horrifying room. Ryan was sure Shane had saw him gaping at the creature, but Shane made no mention of whatever happened that night. In the morning he was the same tall lovable idiot, skepticism and all.

They had packed up as quickly as possible, Ryan fumbling with his sleeping bag, anxious to get the hell out of there. Shane hadn’t really questioned his jumpiness. Ryan was certain something was still staring after him even when they made their way out of the sanatorium.

 

Shane on the other hand was feeling something. He knew there was a word for it. Confused, probably. He felt something in that sanatorium that he’d never even come close to feeling before. It felt weird for the most part. And it felt new. Novel. Unsettling unfamiliar. He could think of so many contradictory adjectives to describe it.

There was one thing he knew for sure. He needed to do something. And fast.

So he did the most logical thing he could think of: he broke into a Try Guys shoot.

 

“So today the Try Guys are taking a lie detector test!” Keith started off the episode.

The rest were watching him off-camera. Eugene thought it was a stupid idea, he was not about to be outed as a demon because of some Buzzfeed episode. Yet he could already think of a million different questions to ask each of the other Try Guys. He didn’t even need a lie detector to tell if they were lying or not, but this would be his chance.

Eugene had gotten used to the goings and comings of The Try Guys, which is what they called themselves. Keith, Ned, Zach, and of course Eugene. He had no idea how he had been roped into the group, but ever since he inhabited the human Eugene’s body, he had vowed to have some alone time among the humans. Away from the tidings and tasks of Hell. Away from where he wouldn’t be singled out and discriminated anymore for his past.

The human Eugene had been doing well it had seemed. A promising career, a family to go home to, a bunch of tidied finances, and two adorable dogs. The only thing was, he didn’t seem to be doing so happily in life. Maybe the excess sleeping pills were what put him in the coma in the first place. The demon knew there was a never a chance of Eugene waking up again. He was still in there somewhere, but more like a snuffed out light that glowed sadly to itself.

The episode started off tame, the questions pretty easy and almost too obvious. Eugene couldn’t help internally scoffing. He knew all the answers already.

“Do you like my chest hair?” Zach started off.

Keith tried so very hard to keep his face still. His lips were stiffed thin as he tried on a nonchalant face. “…Yes,” he said with a little shrug of one shoulder.

“He’s lying.” John was onto him in seconds.

Zach sighed, but he had been expecting it.

Keith cringed.

“I wouldn’t want it on myself,” Keith clarified, laughing a little.

“Do you ever think I talk about my wife too much?” Ned fired a question.

“Yeah,” Keith answered truthfully.

“Keith is telling the truth,” John said.

“I mean yeah I could’ve told you that,” Zach mumbled with a lollipop sticking out of his mouth. Eugene could’ve told them that too.

It was Eugene’s turn to ask a question.

“Keith you have a really large mouth.” Eugene decided to go straight for it. “You ever wonder about how many big things you can fit inside of it?”

“…Yeah,” Keith answered truthfully.

“Are those things sometimes penises?”

“For comedies’ sake, yeah.”

“For sexual sake sometimes?”

“…No?”

“Keith is lying,” John said.

“Dammit, it’s ‘cos I got nervous about how the results would agree,” Keith tried to explain.

“It’s okay.” Eugene patted Keith on the back. “Ain’t nothing wrong boys, ain’t nothing wrong with that.” Eugene could see why this episode could be potentially very entertaining.

The questions went on, tame and easy. Then it was Zach’s turn. The first few questions were quite simple really, scoring Eugene a few more tidbits of information about Zach, like how terrible a liar he was.

“Do you like being single?” Eugene asked. Out of all the stupid fun questions he could ask, he just had to go for that. He knew Zach was single, so why the fuck did he-

“Nah.” Zach shrugged. “Sometimes it’s okay, like I they’re, their-“  
“Do you think you talk too much?” Eugene fired. He didn’t want to hear Zach’s stupid voice talking about how stupidly single he was.

The questions went on.

“Have you ever stolen anything from one of us?” Ned stepped up.

Zach made an exaggerated play of looking intently at everyone, before he chose his answer, “Other than a pen, no.” He was telling the truth.

_How about stealing one of our hearts?_ Eugene thought. He couldn’t slap himself for thinking that on camera, so he settled for quashing every thought about Zach all the way towards the back of his racing mind. He couldn’t help leaning on the table, closing in on Zach as if he was drawing him in. He didn’t understand it, and he didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all. It felt tingly all over in his head, the nice kind of tingly, but in reality he was suffering. 

Thankfully Zach’s turn was over, and after Ned, Eugene found himself hooked up to the machine. He was certain none of the Try Guys were remotely clever enough to expose his many secrets, and he would like to keep it that way. The questions were pretty straightforward, and Eugene actually found himself enjoying it a little. He had to stick to the Eugene storyline, but he couldn’t help inserting his own experiences into the mix.

“Do you believe in true love?” Of course Ned would ask that.

“No,” Eugene answered, and that was the truth. Demons can’t feel love. Even humans shouldn’t possibly be able to feel _true_ love. It was just another stupid thing to believe in. Something about it that gives hope and light to the human race, and the human race only. The human race was too full of light, and Eugene considered himself a shady bitch.

“He’s telling the truth,” John stated.

“Aw-oh,” Zach made a noise that said something along the lines of ‘that’s sad but a very Eugene thing to say’. Eugene felt his brain lump sideways against the inside of his head.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” Keith spoke up.

“Yes.” Eugene believed in ghosts alright. Those floaty motherfuckers. Demons can sense ghosts, ghosts can sense demons. It’s not like they can choose to unsee them or something. When they cross paths, both parties prefer much not to interact, but sometimes a ghost gets too nosy, or a demon gets too touchy, and shit goes down. At least demons get to banish ghosts all the way back to the underworld. It was all an unspoken business and he didn’t really have any strong opinions on that.

“Zach, you ever made out with a coworker?” Keith asked.

Zach looked like he was trying not to smile, or burst, or both. “…No,” he answered in an incredibly squeaky voice.

“He’s lying,” John said.

Eugene was both amused and also a little peeved. 

“Have you made out with _two_ of our coworkers?” Keith continued.

“…No?” Zach was really trying not to laugh nervously.

“He’s lying,” John said.

Eugene was hovering in the background, stony-faced.

“Have you made out with _three_ of our coworkers?” Keith pressed on, smiling.

Zach laughed nervously. “I don’t think so?”

“He’s lying,” John said.

“Can we have four?” Keith asked.

“No, no!” Zach laughed even harder.

Eugene was trying not to let his annoyance show on his face but his smile turned out more of an awkward grimace thing.

The questions got progressively weirder and more self-attacking.

Eugene wasn’t even paying attention unless it was his turn to ask a question, or it was Zach’s turn to answer a question.

“Do you think you’ll ever get married?” Ned asked.

“Yeah,” Zach answered.

“He’s telling the truth,” John said.

“Then why do you give me so much shit about it?” Ned asked. Eugene was too distracted by his own stupid thoughts to hear Ned.

“Do you know how much the three of us care about you?”

Eugene stilled. “No.”

“He’s telling the truth,” John said.

The other three guys sighed.

“We gotta be better about that,” Keith said.

Eugene was thinking. The other guys had only known him for about a year and a half or so, and from human Eugene’s memories he hadn’t known any of the other guys before that. Yet they treated him like a close friend. He had to think about that sometime.

“Eugene, have you wanted to fuck any of us?” Keith asked.

Eugene had not been expecting that question.

“No,” he said, his voice almost too insistent.

“He’s lying,” John said.

“Have you wanted to fuck me?” Keith asked, a little smile playing on his face.

“No,” Eugene said, quelling the concern down into his emotionless guts.

“He’s telling the truth,” John stated.

“Have you wanted to fuck Ned?” Keith continued.

“No!” Eugene said. His slight concern was growing.

“He’s telling the truth,” John stated.

“Then we already know who he wants to fuck,” Keith declared with a smile.

Eugene groaned. _Oh no_.

Zach threw his hands up in a gesture that was so adorable that it should be _illegal_.

Eugene did not mean for that to happen.

 

The shoot was finally over. Eugene was glad to be out of that seat and away from the rest of the guys. In his head, that one question was looping and looping over and over again like a stupidly broken recorder. He was fucked.

While the rest of the Try Guys had wrapped up the shoot and discussed their plans for Chipotle-raiding afterwards, Eugene excused himself to slip away to the bathroom. All the while avoiding Zach’s concerned stares after him. There was something different about the way Zach looked at him now. Eugene didn’t have to see it to sense it.

Eugene wanted to sink down against the sink. Why did he ever agree to join the Try Guys? Everything that had happened in that shoot could’ve been avoided. He would never have known Zach, and his life would’ve been way less complicated. He was feeling a whole shower of things at once, but he couldn’t pick apart his emotions. This had the most human he had felt so far. Everything was crashing against his thoughts, rubbing abrasively on his consciousness.

“Fancy meeting you here again.”

Eugene didn’t have to turn around to know who that was.

“Madej.”

Shane melted away from the shadows, into the harsh fluorescent light of the bathroom.

Eugene couldn’t help but wonder how long he had been standing there in wait.

“Here to see me suffer?” Eugene splashed cold water on his face, as if cold water would make everything go away and solve all his problems.

“Well.” Shane stood there, arms crossed.

“Yeah? Because I am suffering,” Eugene admitted. “Happy?”

“That makes two of us,” Shane spoke up.

Eugene stopped splashing cold water on his face. He slowly turned around to face the other demon. Shane had an unreadable expression on his face, but it matched the seriousness of his words. Eugene tried to think of something witty to say, but he came up short.

“Is it about Ryan?” Eugene asked carefully.

“Is it about Zach?” Shane replied carefully.

They stood there in silence for a tense second, and then they started laughing. Like two idiots just laughing at nothing in particular. A couple of madmen. Laughing as if their whole lives at Buzzfeed didn’t depend on it. Eugene didn’t know what he found so funny, but it just was. Shane just liked to laugh.

“We truly are fucked,” Eugene said, the last of his laughter dying down.

“We are,” Shane echoed.

“You love him,” Eugene whispered, just loud enough that Shane could hear it. If Shane’s fancy little demon gimmick was to know what others were _thinking_ , Eugene the demon’s fancy little demon gimmick was to know what others were _feeling_. The ubi had always had this particular skill, but in Hell there just wasn’t much feeling at all. It was part of why he had always found the human world fascinating.

“What, no!” Shane looked a little taken aback.

Eugene gave him a pointed look.

“That’s, that’s not what I-“ Shane was trying to come up with some way to defend himself. He was trying to pull out a whole long list of reasons he had amassed to prove that he wasn’t so enamoured by Ryan Bergara. He was so sure that he had a whole argument deep inside prepared to fight against why him falling in love with a human was nigh impossible. 

But he couldn’t. He couldn’t find anything to prove that he wasn’t in love with Ryan Bergara.

Eugene was looking down at the floor. Suddenly the tile patterns had become very interesting. He wondered if Shane was going to flare up and attack him or something, but Shane had fallen very quiet.

“I,” Shane tried to say something to dispel the tension. “That’s, it’s impossible.” He didn’t quite believe his own words. Eugene knew it wasn’t impossible. Especially not after he himself had fallen in love with a human.

The both of them stood in stunned silence. There was so much to take in. Back when they were still together, whether as friends or something more, they had heard many accounts of hell beings forming relationships with humans, relationships beyond simply just friends or business. They had always laughed at the thought. Shane had remembered exactly how their conversations had played out.

_I would never fall for a human, that’s stupid_.

_Yeah, but you’re stupid_ , the ubi had joked.

_So are you_ , Shane had retorted.

_This is why we’re here_ , the ubi had said with a smirk.

They had sat in the same comfortable silence back then as they had did now. Except this silence was full of an intensity that Shane had never felt before in the presence of another demon. It was like a connection of some sort, a mutual understanding. Suddenly Shane could understand why the demons he had read about in those accounts never went back to Hell. Once you’ve had a taste of human emotion, there truly was no going back.

“I have to go,” Eugene said suddenly. “The other guys will wonder why I’m gone.”

“Me too,” Shane said.

He had no idea if Eugene had heard him, but the other ubi had already made his way out of the bathroom, leaving Shane in the ubiquitous silence of the bathroom stalls.


	17. is this a dream? no, it's a nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> rule #16: never exhibit affection for a human

“London’s haunted viaduct tavern,” Ryan said.

“Sounds like a great episode name,” Shane said, bemused.

They were both standing in front of a charming-looking pub, somewhere in the middle of the hubbub of London. It was supposedly haunted, but Shane thought it looked like a great place to get drunk or something.

Ryan was feeling much better since the last time he was spooked by what he had seen. Shane had still made no mention of whatever had happened in Waverly Hills that day, and Ryan didn’t know whether he should be glad that he didn’t have to talk about it. Whatever it was, he could still remember the warmth of Shane’s embrace inside the chilling hospital that day. He didn’t know what to feel at this point, but that was one feeling he would never forget.

Ryan settled for staring up at the old pub building, a look of almost wonder across his face. Shane couldn’t help but stare at Ryan. His mind kept going back to what Eugene had said that day in the bathroom. _You love him_. Shane kind of liked the thought of love, the whole concept of love, but he didn’t like how it made him all weak and vulnerable. He knew he had to pull back, he had to keep his feelings in check when he was around Ryan. He was here to do his job and stop Ryan from screwing up, not fall in love with him. Maybe this feeling would go away after a while of feigned ignorance.

“There’s something uh, a little sinister than what lurks beneath,” Ryan said.

“So poetic,” Shane laughed.

Ryan flashed the widest smile at Shane. Shane crumpled a little inside.

“Well let’s uh, let’s go grab a pint!” Shane suggested.

“This week on Buzzfeed Unsolved we investigate viaduct tavern in London, England, as part of our ongoing investigation, are ghosts real?” Ryan started off for them.

Shane did his mandatory shake of his head. Ghosts aren’t real. Sure. If he could keep this game up as a skeptic surely he could ignore this feeling called love.

“It would be foolish to come all the way to London and not investigate a pub so here we are, at this pub with some very interesting history I might say,” Ryan explained to the camera, and Shane.

“Let it flow!” Shane said.

“What do you mean by that?” Ryan asked.

“The history and the uh,” Shane said as he pretended to pull up a hand and whisper conspiratorially towards the camera. “The ale.”

“Yeah I thought you were talking about the ale,” Ryan wheezed.

“I’m talking about that yeah.” Shane smiled back.

“That being said, why don’t we pour ourselves a cold one?” Ryan said.

“O-okay! Off to the races,” Shane exclaimed.

Shane looked way too excited about drinking ale. Ryan was just his usual self, wheezing, but with ale. Shane thought this was a nice bonus to the whole ghost-hunting thing. Maybe if he drank enough he could forget about the whole Ryan and falling in love with a human thing. Maybe.

As Ryan proceeded to elaborate more about the history of the place, Shane was making silent resolutions not to stare so much at Ryan, not to think so much about Ryan, and not to look like an absolute idiot. He was listening, but he was listening half-heartedly, instead thinking about Ryan more just because he tried not to think about Ryan so much. Trying not to think about Ryan just made him want to think about Ryan more. This was an absolute fucking disaster.

It was time to visit a cashier’s booth where the landlady would exchange cash for gin tokens. Before they went the both of them downed another pint. Shane was just trying not to think about Ryan, and failing yet again.

“Ryan,” Shane called out just before Ryan reached out to open the door to the booth. His mind couldn’t thinking back to that night at Waverly’s. “I’ll probably go in the box, do you want me to go in the box or do you want to go into the box?”

Ryan was surprised at this sudden thoughtfulness that Shane had seemed to take on. Ryan thought for a moment before saying, “I’m not scared of this landlady.”

“All right.” Shane shrugged. He really needed to tone it down.

“Yet.” Ryan opened the door.

Ryan thought Shane was just too drunk to be he usual asshole self.

Shane thought Ryan was just too drunk to be his usual shrieking self.

“Oh shit,” Ryan said. He may have regretted being so cocky.

“Good luck,” Shane called after him.

Ryan shut the door. Nothing was going to bother Ryan as long as Shane’s around. He would even punch a ghoul in the face if he had to. It all went pretty well, except the fact that Ryan’s flashlight kept shutting off. And how Shane kept calling Ryan a landlady. Ryan found it more amusing than anything else.

It all went by in a quick haze. Shane mocked a supposed guy who could’ve killed someone by putting a hole in a painting with their gun. Ryan was wary as usual, poised to drive the camera into any ghost who would potentially scare the pants off him. It was going well, as well as a ghost investigation in a supposedly haunted pub could go.

“Located just outside the doors of Viaduct Tavern was the former gallows of Newgate Jail where public executions were held at eight o’ clock in the morning as the bells of the nearby St. Sepulchres church rang,” Ryan explained. “Executions become sort of a morbid social event, with crowds of rowdy and drunk people gathering to watch as a form of entertainment or fascination.”

Shane listened, enraptured.

“Some people would even arrive the night before to ensure a good view. In fact, one pub that still stands across the street from Viaduct called Magpie and Stump, would have viewing rooms that people could rent out and even offered an ‘execution breakfast’,” he continued.

“I love it, I love everything about it,” Shane said. He started snickering. “I really do.”

His snickering started growing into full-blown laughter. He was having the time of his life. He may not understand the human psyche when it came to morbid situations like this, but he sure as hell found the phrase ‘execution breakfast’ downright _hilarious_.

“Holy shit,” Ryan whispered, his eyes wide. 

He managed to say in between laughs, “I really do love it.”

Ryan was just staring at him, a little intimidated.

“Like go to Disneyland, you know people in Disneyland get like a little restaurant seat right by so they can see the parade?” Shane was still grinning like an idiot.

“Yeah?” Ryan said, a little more intimidated now.

“This is like that, but you watch a man’s neck break,” Shane said facing the camera.

“Okay…” Ryan said, his eyes still wide.

They headed off outside the tavern to a fountain, in the spot where the former gallows stood.

“It’s not confirmed that this is the actual site but many people believed it to be, some place it kind of in the street here but either way you can see the Viaduct Tavern right there,” Ryan took the time to explain.

“Clear as day,” Shane said.

“Whatever that building used to be, if it was a building in fact, it would have a great view of you know.” Ryan gestured to the fountain.

“All the people dying,” Shane filled in the blanks for him.

As Ryan proceeded to point out more historical sites for Shane, Shane felt a jolt of an ugly familiarity creep up his spine. It was back. The tug and pull of hot and cold. Sucking him in, calling out to the own magnetic draw in his own energy. He was rooted to the spot making a stupid gesture because he was halfway through inserting strange gestures to accompany Ryan’s explanations. He had to get Ryan away from the fountain immediately.

“We should head back in there probably,” Shane suggested, starting to walk away. “This has been fun, uh, I loved the history, everything.”

Ryan was still standing there. “We can’t do an EVP here because of all the-“

“That’s fine,” Shane almost huffed. “We’ll be okay.”

“Is anybody here?” Ryan stood still at the spot. He could’ve sworn that he had saw a spot of black float across the corner of his vision. Right above the water where he was staring at now.

“Nope!” Shane called out, already starting to walk away. “Uh, we should go get more, gin.”

“Is anybody here?” Ryan tried again.

“Let’s go get a beer, come on,” Shane urged. He would do anything to get away from the fountain, and he needed Ryan to keep away from it too.

Thankfully Ryan finally joined Shane and together they walked back to the tavern.

The rest of the investigation went fairly uneventfully. They stood in a room for like 10 minutes. They wandered around the dark tavern. They even visited the tavern cellar. Shane even had a little conversation with the ghosts in there. The feel of The Veil had faded away, and Shane was beginning to find everything a bit tame really. There hadn’t been much evidence captured on camera or EVP.

When they wrapped up the episode, he was even feeling a little sleepy.

“Hey, should we walk back to the hotel?” Ryan asked.

“Do we have any other choice?” Shane asked.

They were standing outside the tavern, the rest of the crew a bit further behind tidying up all the camera equipment and stuff. Ryan kept looking in the direction of the fountain. Shane kept looking at Ryan. They were both standing in the slightly frosty air, staring.

“I want to go back to the fountain,” Ryan mumbled, his mind far away from there.

“What? Why?” Shane asked, couldn’t quite believing his words.

“I think I, I think I felt something there.” Ryan said quietly, knowing that Shane wouldn’t quite believe him. Shane, the skeptic, the one who he so wished he could tell about everything. Then maybe it wouldn’t be so painful anymore. If only Shane knew how Ryan felt on every shoot, the creeping feeling that something was going to get him. If only Shane knew how his presence mattered to Ryan, how his skepticism dialled down the horror a whole notch. If only Shane knew how much Ryan wanted to talk to him about everything. If only Shane would understand.

“We should go get some food Ryan,” Shane suggested gingerly. He couldn’t let Ryan go back to that fountain.

“It’ll just take a minute,” Ryan said as he started to move towards the fountain.

“Ryan no.” Shane stepped into his path. Ryan tried to go left and go right but Shane was truly blocking his path. _Intentionally_ blocking his path.

“Dude, what the fuck?” Ryan said, more confused than aggressive.

“You can’t go back there,” Shane said, voice grave and serious. It was a tone Ryan had never heard in Shane’s voice before except for ironic purposes.

“What why?” Ryan tried to push past Shane.

Shane offered no explanation. He just refused to get out of Ryan’s way. Ryan was mainly confused, but he was starting to get a little annoyed almost.

“Are you trying to stop me from getting more evidence?” Ryan said before he could think.

Shane looked confused now. “What? No! Ghosts aren’t real, Ryan.”

“Then let me through man,” Ryan said, his face contorted in confusion.

Shane remained rooted.

Ryan didn’t know what struck him, but with a sudden burst of movement, he pushed past Shane, sending the taller man stumbling to one side. He started to run towards the fountain. He didn’t know why he pushed Shane, or why he had to go back to the fountain, but he had saw something, and he was strangely drawn to it.

He didn’t look back to see Shane’s gaping look on his face.

He didn’t look back to see the crew calling after him.

He didn’t look back to see them shouting at him about the incoming motorist.

Ryan’s shoulder exploded in a light show of pain when he landed on his side, grazing the wet asphalt. The asphalt wasn’t wet? His hands were covered in something fluid and thick, clutching at his shoulder. He couldn’t move his shoulder. His legs hurt too, whether from the collision or landing on the hard ground he couldn’t tell. All he knew is that he couldn’t move his head to look down at the dark that seeped through his shirt and bloomed across his jean jacket. His head was spinning, no, the world was spinning and every sound sloshed about in his ears, like everything was far away and he was still falling. His other hand lay limp by his side, and he was unable to lift it. He was also unable to call out for help, as if a thousand needles were stuck down his throat, the pain coarse and searing.

“Ryan!” Someone called him from far away. He couldn’t really hear them, he could only hear the own thudding of his heart in his ears. He could see the ground in front of him now, his vision jerking in and out of blurriness. It was red and sticky something was pooling up around his ear, on the side where his head lay still on the floor.

Someone pulled him up. It was Shane. He had never seen Shane look so worried and panicky before. It was a weird look on him. Ryan wanted to laugh, to put his hand on Shane’s face and tell him everything. But he couldn’t move his hand, he couldn’t move his mouth. His eyes were already trying to close themselves.

“Ryan, stay with me!” Shane shouted urgently.

Ryan’s jacket was soaked with blood, Shane hurriedly peeled it off. Ryan was not responding to his calls, his _pleas_ for him to stay conscious. He couldn’t let him slip into unconsciousness, he didn’t want to consider the possibility that Ryan would never wake up. Ryan’s eyes were barely open, the lids pulling shut over his dazed eyes.

“Ryan, Ryan!” Shane shook him back into a dizzy consciousness. Something throbbed at the base of Ryan’s skull, and he couldn’t hear Shane, but Shane’s lips were moving, so he must be saying something.

Ryan felt so, so weak. His shoulder was slowly losing feeling, something wet and gooey all over it. Shane’s own hands were red now, dark and vivid. _Is that my blood?_ Ryan found himself thinking. Shane knew he had to try to stem the blood. Before his conscious brain could overtake the present, Shane tore his own coat off and wrapped the thick black fabric around Ryan’s injured shoulder. He didn’t care how cold he was underneath with only a white tee on. All he could focus on was Ryan. It wouldn’t be enough to stop the bleeding, but hopefully it would stay until help arrived. Shane realised that the high-pitched noise he had been hearing in the back was somebody screaming in the background. Devon was trying to dial an ambulance, her hands all shaky and her expression that of panic.

“Shane…” Trying to speak was like trying to glue Ryan’s vocal box shut. He didn’t even know if Shane could hear him, but Shane did. Shane leaned in closer, trying to catch Ryan’s bare whispering. Before Ryan could say any more, Shane closed the distance between them, his lips pressing against Ryan’s own. Ryan couldn’t move, but if he could, he never wanted to pull out of Shane’s embrace. He wanted to lift his hands to Shane’s face, an urgent plea for Shane to never leave him again. Sparks were flying, and this wasn’t how Ryan expected his first kiss with Shane to go, but it was perfect. Even though he might die.

In that moment, Ryan realised something.

He _needed_ Shane.

It was over too fast. Ryan had stopped whispering. His vision was devolving into a blur of colors and darkness and jiggling lights. That wasn’t what made him stop. He had saw it. When Shane pulled away from him, he had seen it. In the residue of the rush and the warmth and the sparks he had seen it. And his Vision was never wrong. His head was starting to loll to the side in Shane’s arms, but there was no mistaking what he had seen. He blacked out.

Ryan had seen the black, and it was inside of Shane.


	18. ryan, what have I done?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> rule #17: if you go against demon tradition, you have to get used to the consequences.

The sterile beeping of the machines was the only thing that indicated that Ryan was still alive. His face was a still frame of emptiness, no emotions, no bright smile, no judgmental faces. He might as well have been dead. Shane couldn’t stop staring at his face, as if trying to will Ryan awake to tell him that he was just being a tall asshole. Every time he looked at Ryan’s face, he was reminded of the tingling and the passion and the warmth that burned between them. It was a feeling he had never experienced, he had never felt anything so passionately in his whole life, and that was saying a lot. It was like the flip of a switch that he needed to send all the emotions and the feelings and the human side of things flooding in.

The intensive care unit was bustling. Ryan’s hospital bed was like an island of morbid calm in the middle of all the rush. Nurses and doctors bustled in and out occasionally, their faces passive as if nothing had ever happened. Shane supposed so, they were probably used to the sight of the dead and the wounded and all the patients. He was still a bit baffled at how normal they were acting, as if nothing was ever wrong with Ryan lying on the hospital bed and he was just sleeping. Shane too was used to the sight of the dead, but this was not just any human. This was Ryan. _His_ Ryan.

Shane found himself wringing his hands, something prickly creeping up his back. He didn’t know what he was feeling. He was feeling, though. It was a strange sensation, to feel everything and nothing at once. He was numbed, the beating inside him numbed, as if it was just stuck. Then again he would look at Ryan and all the feeling would come rushing back to him. He didn’t know what to call it.

He felt so alone.

“Madej.”

Suddenly he didn’t feel so alone anymore.

There was a single wooden cabinet standing beside Ryan’s hospital bed, with a single pair of doors that Eugene had to stoop to get through. He came into the room.

“What are _you_ doing here?” Shane tried to retort, but his voice had lost its usual edge and sarcastic hint, replaced instead by an insufferably quiet tone.

Eugene didn’t respond. Instead, he pulled up one of those generic hospital chairs and seated himself next to Shane. He looked thoughtful, like he was trying to sense something. Shane was trying to study his expression for any signs of contempt or any hints of “I told you so”. He wouldn’t put it pass the other demon to not understand what he was feeling right now. Demons were not known for the mushy and sappy feeling stuff after all. Besides, from what he knew of the other demon, he knew that the ubi wasn’t really one to talk about feelings.

But Eugene understood. He could feel the demon’s pain, how it coursed through his thoughts and scraped the inside of his brains. He could feel it, the pain of loss. Shane the demon was hurting inside. Eugene was only scraping the bare surface of what Shane was feeling, this pain, and it already hurt so bad. It clashed at Shane’s insides and clawed down the world that Shane had come to know. Eugene couldn’t fully imagine what the other demon was feeling, he didn’t _want_ to fully imagine. It was new, it was hurting, it was pain.

Yet underneath all the throbbing hurt Eugene could feel something else. It was like iced water down a parched throat, a warmth in the coldest of nights, the soft feel of blankets on tired skin, it was comforting and it was close and it was fuzzy. It was so confusing, because it was so foreign and so dangerous, but it wasn’t completely new to Eugene. That’s because he had felt the same thing when he found himself around Zach Kornfeld. 

It was almost too tender a moment. The two of them sitting by the bed, basking in this momentary mutuality of mutiny to demonkind.

“You’re hurting,” Eugene tried to say, but it probably came out as a breathy mumble because he had no idea what to say and he was trying not to let the full force of emotions that were not his own come crashing down on him.

Shane was silent. He _was_ hurting. He was hurting so bad. It was eating at his insides, and it hurt more than anything he’d ever experienced before. It hurt even worse when he angled his head just enough to see the blank features of Ryan’s unconscious form lying on the bed, instead of explaining the theories and the history and calling Shane all sorts of ridiculous names. He didn’t even care if the other demon was staring anymore. Is this what humans feel like when they experience the death of a loved one? Is this what it feels like to have your world crashing down on you? Shane didn’t know what to call it, but the more he thought about it, the more something else started to grow in the pits of his stomach.

_Fear_. It was the niggling thought at the back of Shane’s head that told him maybe Ryan Bergara was never waking up again. It was the way he jumped a little when a periodic louder beep emitted from a machine at intervals when he was staring at Ryan. It was how his eyes roved hopefully, tracing Ryan’s features with a harried mind, the worrying chewing away at his sanity. Ryan wasn’t supposed to be lying on that bed. He was supposed to be up and running Unsolved, he was supposed to be chewing away at Shane’s ridiculously skeptic front. He was supposed to be beaming like the sun, so glowing and so radiant and so much more than Shane deserved. This was all his fucking fault. It was his fault. He should’ve been able to stop Ryan, he should’ve been able to do his job without hurting Ryan. He was foolish to have fell for Ryan, and to ever have wanted to feel anything at all, and now the person that mattered the most to him could be _gone_.

And now Ryan might never wake up again. He had wanted, he had thought of telling Ryan everything. He wanted Ryan to know the truth. That he was a demon and his true purpose here and that the skeptic thing was all just a ruse. Even if it hurt him when Ryan was bound to be disbelieving, then scared of him. Ryan deserved to know the whole truth. Shane had been waiting for a time to tell him. He had thought they had more time, more time for Shane to enjoy his life here with Ryan, more time for Ryan to get used to Shane. More time for him to earn Ryan’s trust, so that he could tell him that he _loved_ him. And that he was a demon, but that was another matter.

Now he was angry. He was so angry. Angry at Ryan, Ryan for not listening to him and going after the fountain anyway. Ryan for being so stupidly amazing for a human and for capturing a demon with a smile so bright that he might as well have been the fucking sun. Ryan, for getting hurt and leaving him to suffer human emotions all alone in a foreign place. He was also angry at the ubi, the one currently seated next to him, staring at him with eyes that should be filled with hatred and disgust instead of the warmth and empathy that they contained. Eugene was staring at Shane, and he was actually trying to understand what Shane was feeling. Shane was angry, the ubi should’ve been bashing Shane for trying to even feel what humans feel, he should’ve been criticising Shane for falling in love with a human, he should’ve been giving Shane ten thousand warnings about getting the job done that he wouldn’t have heeded anyway. But he wasn’t. Eugene looked so warm and comforting that Shane wanted him to stop.

No. _No._ This was all wrong. Shane was angry at himself. This was all his fault, he was sent here to do his job, and he ended up giving in to his own selfish curiosity about how human emotions felt. He was the one who opened his own heart to a human named Ryan Bergara, and allowed himself to do the one thing he swore he would never do: fall in love with a human. This was love, and this was real, and it wasn’t going away. All because of Shane’s own fucking selfishness. He was the one who got everyone into this, he was the one who put Ryan in that awful hospital bed, he was the one who should be unconscious and in the hospital bed, not Ryan. He was angry at himself for being so stupid and irresponsible and selfish.

He was angry at himself for _feeling_.

Shane wasn’t supposed to be feeling this way. He was a demon for fuck’s sake! Demons were supposed to be coldhearted creatures with no notion of human emotion, no capability to take and process feelings. They were supposed to be used to death, like death was casual and natural and very real, not devastated by death. They were supposed to only look out for themselves, put themselves and their tasks above all else. They weren’t supposed to be moping about feeling sorry for themselves just because they put a human in hospital and now they’re feeling more than a twinge of something. They weren’t supposed to be sitting by a hospital bed while the person that mattered most to them lay unmoving in said bed while the demon who was their ex and their former best friend stared almost too concerned at them.

Yet that was exactly what was happening to Shane.

He couldn’t explain any of this. Nothing could explain any of this.

He tried to speak. He tried to speak but nothing came out even though his lips were moving. He didn’t know what he was trying to say, but the silence was choking him and it was unbearable. He wanted Eugene to _say something_ , maybe even tear him apart with an “I told you so” or some witty, cutting comeback. He needed somebody.

Eugene seemed to understand this. He did the unthinkable: he _hugged_ Shane.

The ubi pulled in the taller demon for an embrace. An embrace between two demons who were stuck between the human world and Hell. Two demons who had come so far, who had fallen so hard, and who were in too deep to go back to who they were before.

Shane froze at first, but when he overcame his initial shock (the ubi wasn’t exactly known for his displays of physical affection), he found himself sinking into the hug. Whether he was too surprised to pull out of the hug, or if he had genuinely liked it, he didn’t really care. They were there in the moment, and he wasn’t alone, he wasn’t so alone. He was reminded of all those years where they had been on more than just speaking terms, when the ubi was the only person that mattered most in his life, when they would be stupid and reckless and protective of each other. All those years of friendship came rushing back to Shane the demon, one couldn’t have just gotten rid of those years with a snap.

In that moment, Shane didn’t know it, but he had already forgiven the other demon for looping him into the reckless endeavour to cross The Veil. The Veil was in them both, and instead of tearing them apart with terrifying memories of running and falling and screaming back then, it actually drew them closer together. 

The hug wasn’t too brief and snappy, but it was long enough to leave a lingering of warmth on Shane’s own skin, a reminder that he wasn’t too lonely after all.

Eugene didn’t say anything. He just looked into Shane’s eyes with a tenderness that unearthed something familiar in Shane’s insides. Then he stepped back through the cabinet and was gone, leaving Shane standing by the bed with the periodic electronic beeping.

Shane was all alone again, but he wasn’t so lonely anymore.

 

Shane had been wandering the hospital halls for hours. He was like a shadow, melting into the surroundings and observing the people rushing about. Watching the death come and go. Every hospital had their own ghostly inhabitants. A hospital is like a hotspot for death, lives were claimed and souls were ripped from bodies. It was like a waiting room for the afterlife. Shane had seen his fair share of ghosts who spent the rest of eternity lost and disoriented, as if death had tore all their memories from their conscious form. There were too many of these wandering the hallways of the hospital. Not unlike Shane, the demon who was too tired to decide how to proceed, wandering aimlessly through a world of humans.

Shane had peered into countless hospital wards. He’d witnessed the last moments of many a human, and his heart died a little inside thinking of Ryan. He’d also witnessed family and love, births and miraculous recoveries, and all the things that make humans human. He couldn’t help but think back to a time when he was still the most annoyingly ambitious of his kind. He had wanted to feel what humans feel, wanted a taste of emotions.

_Maybe it feels like you’re getting high_ , he had wondered out loud.

_You idiot,_ his ubi friend had laughed.

_You’re not denying it!_ he had replied, laughing too.

Those times were so easy.

Shane had to sit down after a bit. He even tried the coffee from one of those vending machines that hummed in the middle of a long corridor, next to the empty washrooms. It had tasted like water sloshed off the bottom of a dishwater, but at least it kicked the stupid thoughts out of his head. When he trashed his empty cup, he was ready to get back to Ryan’s room.

It was past visiting hours, so he had to detour over to a washroom and enter one of the bathroom stalls. It led to the cabinet doors by Ryan’s hospital bed.

Shane didn’t know what he had been expecting when he stepped out of those doors and saw Ryan’s unmoving form lying on the bed in the slowly darkening room. He looked oddly peaceful in the blue glow of the night, the lights outside the window projecting an otherworldly glow onto Ryan’s features.

Shane couldn’t help but run a hand gently across Ryan’s face, tracing his cheekbone with his finger. Ryan didn’t deserve this, he didn’t deserve any of this.

Shane settled for squeezing his gangly form into a plastic chair. He didn’t need sleep, he was perfectly content with watching over Ryan like this. Even though Ryan wasn’t conscious or awake to be screaming about ghosts, he didn’t like the thought of any coming near Ryan’s unconscious form. It was the only thing he could do right now.

As he sat there studying Ryan’s features with a tenderness he had never experienced before, the demon couldn’t feel any regret to having fallen for the human named Ryan Bergara.


	19. the veil makes a chilling comeback

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> rule #18: the veil will always stay with you.

_Ryan is running. He doesn’t know why but he is running, and he has to keep running. His face is wiped wet from hot tears, and nobody can hear his cries. He is running through a haze, a fog so thick that he can’t see where he is going. The fog isn’t white, it swirls with darkness, a black deeper than everything. It’s the same black he sees behind someone who’s about to die. It’s the same black he had saw inside the person who mattered to him most: Shane Madej._

_There is an unexplained fear so great inside him that is only growing by the second. It isn’t even the weirdest part. The running is stirring up a strange calm inside him. It doesn’t tear apart the fear, and the fear doesn’t override this strange calm, instead they settle at the bottom of his guts in the strangest feeling he has ever felt. His insides are burning, but his skin is chilling to the touch, and he is trying hard not to shiver._

_His shoulder throbs with a ghostly pain, a remnant of something that must have been hurting so badly before, but now it only feels strange and numb. The fog parts like a soup, a thick roll of quiet animation, as if telling him that he is the only one who is running. He’s alone. The ground beneath his feet feel unsteady and changing, but he has to keep going. His heart is pounding, his steps light and fast but he feels as if his whole body is made of lead, like something is pulling him back and down into the ground. He is fighting to keep moving, and he doesn’t know when to stop._

_Then he sees something in the distance. Something standing still among the pulsing rolls of the fog, something dark and tall standing between the plumes. He feels strangely attracted towards whatever it is._

_As he draws closer, he realises that the something is a someone. When the fog parts just enough for him to see, he realises that the someone is Shane Madej._

_“Shane?” Ryan doesn’t trust his voice. It is shaky and weak and needly, and he isn’t even sure what he just said. He realises that he is crying, and he hates feeling so weak. He can’t stop the tears, even as he is getting closer to Shane. He is so glad to see Shane, the familiar gangly outline of all limbs and head and the other man’s stupid lovable self._

_Shane looks lost. There is a flicker of emotion that strikes him across the face. Ryan has never seen Shane this disoriented and worried and concerned. Ryan doesn’t understand. Shane looks to be searching the fog for something. His usually droopy sad eyes look even sadder and it tears at Ryan even more._

_“Shane!” This time Ryan calls a bit louder. Shane doesn’t seem to hear him._

_Ryan runs closer. Shane is still standing there._

_Ryan runs straight through Shane._

_What?_

_He turns back, Shane is no longer standing there. Just more swaths of blackness, and it is creeping closer towards him. Ryan has stopped running. He can’t seem to run. The black is wrapping around his ankles, creeping up and latching onto him. He can’t move now._

_All he can see is the black._

 

_“_ Shane!”

Shane wakes up with a start, nearly clattering his chair to the floor. He realises that he is lying his head on the bed, the lower half of him perched dangerously on a tilted plastic chair. Right, he was in the hospital, besides Ryan’s bed. Ryan, who was unconscious because of him.

That was Ryan’s voice. It was Ryan’s voice who had shouted his name. Ryan had woken him up. But that was impossible. Ryan was still lying unconscious on the bed.

Shane had been dreaming. No, it was more of a nightmare. He didn’t even remember when he had fallen asleep, he was supposed to be looking out for Ryan.

Shane could remember the bare glimpses of some thick soupy black, of searching and searching for something. He could remember Ryan. Ryan who looked so scared and alone. Ryan, who was running from something.

That’s when he remembered it: demons can’t dream.

Then what the fuck did he see?

Shane took a moment to recollect his thoughts. Nothing made sense. Ryan’s voice. His dream, nightmare, vision thing. Everything was so weird. Everything was so fucking weird.

It was The Veil.

Suddenly all the dots seemed to be connecting.

Ryan and Shane had both felt the presence of The Veil at the fountain. Ryan’s Sight was a result of The Veil. Shane had not let Ryan go back to the fountain because of The Veil. Ryan had lost consciousness because of The Veil. Ryan had seen The Veil in Shane.

The Veil, the Veil, the Veil.

It was all because of the Veil.

Ryan was stuck in the Veil. That’s why he couldn’t wake up. Not because of some reckless motorist, not because of the impact, not because of the blood. He was trapped in the Veil. Lost and confused. That’s why his consciousness hasn’t returned to his body yet. Shane suddenly felt like he understood everything.

There was only one problem: Shane had no idea how to get Ryan back.

Shane cursed under his breath. He felt like scratching his eyes out, this was going nowhere. He had finally understood what had happened, everything that was going on. But he was getting nowhere with this knowledge. He had to do something and he wasn’t doing it.

There was only one way to go.

He had to get back to Buzzfeed.

 

Eugene the ubi had been doing some thinking. There was no point in staying here at Buzzfeed, letting himself fall for a human out of all things. He couldn’t keep going like this. Pining after Zach, thinking about Zach, staring at Zach in every single Try Guys shoot. The point was, it was getting ridiculous. He was a demon. He had seen what falling for a human has done for other demons. He knew Shane had his thing going on, but Shane was Shane. Eugene was Eugene. He couldn’t keep going like this, feeling like his heart was about jump right out his throat and abandon him for a human named Zach Kornfeld.

He had been thinking too. The ubi didn’t like to do goodbyes, either too much sappiness, too much awkwardness, or too many hugs. Plus, he couldn’t imagine the look on Zach’s face that would probably shatter his heart in two million pieces. Now that he had a heart to break, he was going to reel it in and keep it locked up before anything could break it.

He thought it over. Yeah, he would quietly pack up his things. Then he would probably drop by the Try Guys desks and whisper a quick mental goodbye, savouring the last sights he would have of Zach and the rest of the guys. He had grown fond of them, but he had to leave before it developed into something that could cripple his demonic status.

He was finally done shoving the last of his things into his bags. He had wondered if any souvenirs from his time here on Earth would be worth keeping. Like the stuffed turtle keychain that Zach had unintentionally (intentionally from the looks of how please he was when he had saw Eugene attach the ridiculous thing to his backpack) misplaced on Eugene’s desk. Or the many Keith stickers that Keith had pasted up all over his desk, a reminder of the Try Guys try to prank each other episode. Or the coffee mug Ned had gifted Eugene when he had found him stealing mugs from everyone else in the office. It was red, of course. Eugene sighed. He was getting rid of this life, he might as well eliminate all traces of it. He tried not to look at the stuff from the other guys sitting sadly in the bin under his desk.

There was no space for emotions if he was trying to escape from a life that could send him spinning into a world that he did not to be caught in. Love, betrayal, pain, all these highly volatile emotions are basically just a whirlwind of confusion and fear and- Emotions basically led to more emotions, and Eugene didn’t know if he was ready for that. Maybe it was better to just run.

Currently, the other guys were late to work. Eugene didn’t need to travel, he could just use doors, so of course he had crashed in at Buzzfeed at an unearthly hour in the morning and thought out his master plan. He had shoved the bags with all his stuff under the table at the far end, so nobody would be asking any questions. His desk looked ridiculously empty without all the personal things and the decorations and everything.

Hopefully nobody would miss him too much or notice that he was gone.

Eugene was just turning to go when he felt a hand on his shoulder. _Fuck_ , he had been hoping to get away unnoticed and now he had to turn and face-

Shane.

“What are you-“

“No time to explain,” Shane shushed Eugene up as he dragged the other demon away from his desks and his bags which he had no time to grab. “I need your help.”

“Goddammit Madej is there a time when you won’t need me?” Eugene said laughingly when he saw that the look on Shane’s face was grim and serious and it was definitely not the time to be joking about right now. 

“It’s The Veil,” Shane started off urgently. “It’s always been The Veil.”

Eugene looked at Shane as if he was insane.

“What?”

“The Veil, don’t you understand?” Shane snapped. “Ryan is in the hospital because of us, the Veil, because of me, and because of you!” He was seething right now.

Eugene was silent. He was angled away from Shane, like he was ready to run. No, he was scared of Shane. Shane tried to step back and take a look at what he had become. He was angry, and he looked like he was ready to tear into Eugene now. Eugene looked _scared_. Shane’s eyes were flaring a red that was almost fiery, and the sheer intensity of it mirrored the unexplained rage he was feeling right now. Like he wanted to pull out all the blame on someone and go on a rampage.

Shane realised this and he took a step back.

He should stop bristling at Eugene. He knew it wasn’t Eugene’s fault. This wasn’t anybody’s fault. This was because of The Veil. He had to focus on saving Ryan now. It wasn’t the time to be chewing anybody out.

Instead, he composed himself, and proceeded to explain to Eugene what the fuck was going on. How Ryan’s Sight caused this, the feeling of the Veil and the incidents and the accident and everything that was going on. He started from the beginning, and he let everything out, how it all happened, how it was his fault, and everything.

“How do I save Ryan?” He settled for saying.

Eugene was stunned. “Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?”

Shane gave him a pointed look.

The past came back to smack Eugene in the face. All the recklessness and the fun times that was taken away by the Veil that fateful day. All the arguing and the silent treatment and the betrayal and the pain of being apart. History was irreparable, it simply couldn’t be ignored and tucked away as if it had never even happened. Once something was broken between two people, it just simply couldn’t be repaired to the way it used to be. They had both learnt the painful way that trust can be lost just as easily as it was hard to gain.

“Right.”

Eugene thought for a while.

Suddenly, he stilled.

“So there is a way.” Shane said quietly. He could tell what the other demon was thinking.

“No.” Eugene looked up to face Shane.

There _was_ a way to save Ryan Bergara, but at what cost?

Shane was thinking.

“Shane,” Eugene said, his voice a little more urgently. Sure, they had some beef between them in the past, but that didn’t mean he wanted the other demon to do something so stupid. Something so stupid that not even regret or the devil himself could reverse such a decision.

Shane looked at Eugene. Eugene already knew that Shane had made up his mind. And when Shane made up his mind, there was no convincing him otherwise. He wouldn’t even listen to Eugene. Eugene knew what he was about to do. He could tell how much Shane cared about Ryan, and he had completely fallen for him. There was no turning back for Shane.

_You know I have to do this_ , Shane said. Eugene could hear the chilling calm of Shane’s projected thoughts. As if Shane had already resigned to his fate. It was a fate worse than death. No demon in their right mind would ever agree to voluntarily suffer this fate. But Shane the demon wasn’t in his right mind. His mind had been taken by his heart, completely, as far as a demon could fall. And this demon had fallen hard, he had fallen for Ryan Bergara.

He would do anything for Ryan.

Eugene knew that he couldn’t stop Shane. So he settled for looking at Shane instead. This was the demon that he had once learnt how to love with. This was the demon who snatched him from the brink of regret and a lifetime of pitiful decisions. This was the demon who taught him confidence and everything he now held dear. Shane had stuck by Eugene when nobody else did, he was there in the darkest times, and he was also there in the happiest times. They had shared a relationship that developed as far as relationships between two demons could go. And now this was the demon who he was about to lose forever.

“Fuck, I-“ He tore his eyes away from Shane’s gaze. Now wasn’t the time for emotions or what he should have done many many years ago. Regret tore through the pit of his stomach, and it was a sensation he was all too familiar with. He couldn’t look at Shane anymore. Not like this, when the past was a wound that was opened up by emotion. He wished he didn’t have to see Shane like this, so vulnerable and so desperate and so angry and so hurt. It reminded him of himself, when he was feeling so alone.

The ubi _knew_ what it was like to be so alone and feel like everything was their fault.

“Help me,” Shane said ever so quietly.

They shared a moment of quiet. Shane looking into Eugene’s eyes, and Eugene looking into Shane’s eyes. The two demons standing around in a human bathroom.

Eugene steeled himself. If this was what Shane wanted, he had to help him. Consider it a way to make up for the past, even if it was something that would devastate him forever.

So Eugene told him exactly what to do.


	20. I love you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> rule #19: never fall in love with a human.

The clock struck 2.30a.m.

The hospital was eerily quiet at this time, like on the edge of a breath. The few staff on night duty were wandering the halls in a dazed stupor, and it was raining outside. The rain pattered softly against the glass that overlooked the few cars that crawled by outside. A rainy night felt oddly suitable for Shane Madej.

Ryan looked so peaceful. Shane wished he could pretend that Ryan was just sleeping, just lying there, finally passed out after a stressful episode of Unsolved. Like one of those nights when Ryan was just so _beautiful_ and Shane couldn’t stop staring at him when he finally fell asleep and stopped plaguing Shane about ghosts.

He wishes Ryan was awake so he could say goodbye. To hear his stupidly amazing voice one last time. He just wanted to hear Ryan call him some stupid nickname one last time. He wanted to see that beam, that glow, that smile so _fucking bright_ that it made Shane’s heart skip a beat. He wanted to see the way Ryan’s eyes positively lit up every time his banter with Shane delighted him. Hells, he even wanted to hear Ryan talk about ghosts and aliens.

He wanted it.

He _needed_ it.

He wished he could have it.

Shane laughed and shook his head.

It’s amazing how far he come.

Shane looked ridiculous standing in the awkward space between Ryan’s bed and the window and the cabinet but it was the only place he knew to stay. He didn’t care about anything anymore, just Ryan and Ryan and Ryan. Shane wished he could have a happy ending, one where Ryan was awake and they could continue looking for ghosts together and laughing over lunch and talking about crime and maybe even something more. 

He laughed at the irony of it. He wouldn’t have been here, he wouldn’t have come to Earth, he wouldn’t have known Ryan Bergara, if he hadn’t been so curious about human emotions. Yet, now that he has experienced what it was like to feel like a human, he was pretty much _fucked_. And he was glad it had all happened.

If you had told Shane Madej just a year or so ago that he would fall in love with a human, or even given two fucks about a human, he would’ve laughed at you. He would’ve laughed so hard, the disbelief crumpling up in his wheezing laugh. He wouldn’t have believed you, he would’ve thought you were insane really. It was all just so funny.

He thought about staying, about staying by Ryan’s side and hoping one day Ryan would awake and smile at Shane again. He would be willing to wait, for weeks, for months, for years even, just to see that smile again.  Even if he had to stay in this wonky human’s body. Even if it hurts him.

But he couldn’t. He had to do it, for Ryan.

He had to go.

If he kept standing around staring at Ryan he would never leave.

Shane pressed something into Ryan’s hand. It was something he had picked up at a gift shop nearby. It was a hotdog keychain, one with ridiculously googley eyes and a streak of yellow across it that Shane assumed was mustard. It was so hilarious and comical that Shane couldn’t help but crack a smile. He had seen it sitting lonely on the shelves and thought it would make a swell gift. A souvenir. A reminder even, of what could’ve been.

The clock was inching closer to 3a.m.

He pressed a soft kiss to Ryan’s forehead.

_I love you_.

Shane left without looking back.

 

_Ryan awakens to blackness. He hates the blackness, it makes him feel all cold and unnerved and alone and so, so scared. His shoulder hurts and his head hurts and it feels like he is dissociating on a million levels. It feels like the point where you were waking up from a nightmare and everything is strange and hazy._

_He starts running. He doesn’t know what he is running from. Or running towards. Or running for. He just knows he had to keep running, if not the darkness will catch up._

_That’s when he sees it. The flaming sky. He is back at the start where it all began, where the visions start coming and the world plunges him into a life of seeing and fearing and not understanding. The fog ahead throbs with a thunderous swirl of black and red, pooling together angrily like fire and a storm and everything dangerous. The fog is bulging, growing and slashing upwards and towards Ryan, like it is coming for him. The angry flames are gold and orange and red and yellow and almost morbidly beautiful that Ryan can’t move just staring at them._

_The wall of flames and fog and darkness sends itself hurtling at him. He snaps back to his bare senses and starts moving again. He knows he can’t outrun it, it always comes for him. The sky is raging and he is running and everything is blurry._

_He stands still and braces himself for impact. If this is it, there was no use running._

_The roar of the flames are muffled by an eerie quiet. Ryan covers his head in his hands when it starts to wash over him._

_Someone pulls him away._

_Ryan stumbles and falls through the fogs and lands straight on top of-_

_Shane Madej._

_Shane was staring back at him with the same goofy grin and tall self. Ryan didn’t even have time to be confused before a grin catches up with him. In spite of himself, in spite of the flames and everything (which were now gone but he didn’t think too much about it), he smiled. He was beaming, he couldn’t help but smile so broadly when he saw Shane._

_He crumples into Shane’s arms. He thought he would never get to see Shane again. The memories all came flooding back with a startling clarity. The accident, the blood, the screaming, the pain, and the kiss. Shane had kissed him, and he had kissed Shane back._

_He didn’t wait for a second chance. He didn’t want to wait. He throws his arms around Shane’s neck and jams his own lips around Shane’s. Shane is taken aback for the quickest second, then he doesn’t hesitate to reciprocate it. The warmth inside the both of them shoots through their bubble of frozen time and space in the middle of all the fog and the raging flames and it is just them in the moment, no ghosts, nobody else. Time freezes and everything stills, but Shane and Ryan are just two souls lost in between time, together and not alone. It is passion and longing and a whole year of repressed emotion springing up in a single kiss._

_Ryan never wants it to end._

_But he isn’t kissing Shane anymore._

_Shane is standing slightly away. He is looking back at Ryan, an unexplainable sadness marring his features. Ryan doesn’t like it. He doesn’t want to see Shane sad._

_“Shane?” Ryan’s voice is a little shaky._

_Shane smiles at him. That stupidly lovable grin of Shane. Ryan’s heart skips a beat._

_“Shane? What are you doing?” Ryan’s voice comes out in a little squeak, he doesn’t think Shane can hear him._

_Shane looks at him one last time._

_“I love you Ryan.”_

_Ryan tries to say he loves Shane back, how he wants Shane so badly in his life. He wants to scream at Shane to stay, not to go and leave him alone here. He wants to pull Shane in._

_But he doesn’t get a chance to say it back when Shane walks into the fire._

_It is like throwing something into a fire and watching it sear and burn and char around the edges, just bits of black and ugly searing in the flames. It’s like watching someone else destroy something you love so badly that it hurts. That’s how Ryan feels watching Shane throw himself into the flames._

_Shane’s eyes eclipsed in a manic show of red and black and white, and a pain erupts from his back all the way up to his horns. It feels like something is tearing his insides out and pulling it back in, only to have it ripped clean of his consciousness. There is a horrid mangle of sound and voices, Ryan’s voice, and burning and crackling and wind just roaring louder and louder in his ears. Sores sprout up along his arms and his consciousness is being ripped from his body._

_Not his body. Shane Madej’s body. The body he had come to get used to. And now he was being taken away from it._

_Ryan is screaming. He is screaming because he has found his voice._

_He can’t hear Shane screaming back for him over the rush of energy._

_He can’t see Shane, because Shane is gone._

 

_Ryan is lost. He is in a stupor._

_He can’t remember anything._

_Everything is shrouded with a haze. He can’t remember why he is here, in this darkness and fog. Why he was running. Why he is wandering aimlessly through the silence._

_The last thing he remembers is a crash. A motorcycle crash. Someone screaming and someone holding him and trying to shake him awake. He can’t remember who._

_He has to find a way out._

_He has heard stories about people coming back to life by following the light at the end of the tunnel. There is no tunnel here, but there is a light. It is shining in the distance, a beacon of hope in the bleary darkness._

_Ryan stumbles and nearly falls, but he manages to run towards it._

_He is running, and he is running back into the light._

 

Eugene was sitting by his window when he felt it.

The clock had struck 3a.m.

It was like something unseen had tore the energy straight out the demon. Like a wave of something cold and hot and everything hit him and was gone in a flash. Like lightning struck him and he was lost and stuck but he was okay.

He felt it. Like a part of him had been lost. Something so deeply ingrained in him had been ripped out and replace with a hollowing emptiness so quiet that it screamed in his ears. Something had torn the strange volatile energy inside him and left him gasping for air with an emptiness so deep and foreign.

It was only fleeting. It was gone the next second.

He no longer felt The Veil inside him.

The world outside his window went on as usual. The sky was dark, the occasional car went rumbling past, the neighbours’ dogs barked at periodic intervals. The storm outside had slowed down into a soft rain that pattered sadly against the glass of his window. Like the remnants of a passion that had died down inside. 

The world had moved on, and he was the only one stuck.

He was the only one who knew, the only one who remembered.

He was the only one who still remembered Shane Madej.

He was the only one who still remembered the day.

The day Shane Madej walked into The Veil without a backwards glance and erased himself from existence.


	21. the end

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> rule #20: don't be the only one.

Ryan Bergara grew up in a household with loving parents and a brother.

He was well-liked and had good grades at his school.

He grew up in the States and lived in a nice terraced house.

He went to Chapman University and graduated top of his class.

His parents are Catholic and he goes to church every Sunday.

He works at Buzzfeed now as a video editor.

He co-hosts a sports show with a man named Zack Evans.

He stars as a guest on Worth It with his friend Steven Lim and on the Try Guys sometimes.

He has a girlfriend named Helen Pan.

He sleeps at 11p.m. every night after reading a book.

He goes down to a coffee shop near the office for a coffee every morning.

He doesn’t believe in ghosts and demons.

He has a hotdog keychain attached to his work bag.

 

Shane Madej died on the 3rd of July, in the back of an ambulance. He was still alive when they found him lying by the roadside, and nobody knew who he was until after his death. He died alone lying on that stretcher in the back of that ambulance. Worst thing was, he wasn’t even special, just a regular guy who died on a regular day. One death among many.

Everyone at Buzzfeed knows Shane. He’s a quiet guy really, who keeps to himself. He’s tall and gangly and slouches a lot. He’s one of the video producers in the office who’s scarily good at video editing, but that’s about it. Nobody really knows what he likes to do in his free time. He sits alone at lunchtime and sometimes talks to a few coworkers if prompted. Anyone would describe him as a sad guy. His death was a tragic one, like a little dent in the comfortable routine at Buzzfeed, but it didn’t really _devastate_ anyone.

Everyone at Buzzfeed goes to his funeral. It is a quiet affair really, an open casket one, Shane didn’t really have much family or many friends. The man kept to himself a lot and he didn’t seem to favour conversation. It’s held in a small church near the office but nobody even knew if Shane went to church at all.

Ryan Bergara is among one of the people who is going to Shane’s funeral. He didn’t know Shane very well, he had only talked to him once or twice, and even then it was about work. He always just thought Shane was one of those guys that he would have nothing to talk to about. Still, he’s here, at Shane’s funeral.

Ryan thinks it’s tragic that anyone had to die so young. Especially someone like Shane Madej. He didn’t know if Shane had any goals or aspirations but everyone’s bound to have those, right?

Ryan is invited to say a few words. He doesn’t really have any heartfelt words to say, but he accepts politely and walks up to the casket to say a few words. Since it is an open-casket funeral, Ryan is allowed a glimpse of the dead man lying in the casket.

When his eyes lay upon the unmoving corpse, he gets a feeling. It’s like the feeling of deja vu, of remembering something that one didn’t consciously remember before. It is a fleeting moment, and then it is gone, leaving an unexplained emptiness inside Ryan. He felt a little jolt of something when he looked at the dead man. When he looked at Shane. Ryan managed to put it aside and say a few words. Yet his eyes kept wandering back to Shane. As if this has all happened before. He can’t help but feel as if he had known Shane Madej better. But that couldn’t be possible, could it?

As Ryan proceeds to say a few words, he doesn’t notice someone staring at him from the front row of seats. Staring at him with such an intensity and a sort of pain that it is almost as if he is willing Ryan to _remember_. Deep down inside he is hoping that a part of Ryan Bergara still remembers Shane Madej.

Eugene Lee Yang wishes that Ryan would remember Shane and somehow reverse everything and bring Shane back. As he sits between the rest of the Try Guys in the front row of the solemn occasion, something is crawling up inside him. Guilt, remorse, regret, and loss. What else can he do but look on as Ryan Bergara says a few words for a dead man who he doesn’t even know?

Eugene is still here, all because he has to keep living. He has to keep living for Shane, he has to keep living for Zach Kornfeld and the rest of the guys, he has to keep living for Ryan Bergara. He made a promise to Shane to keep this man safe, no matter what the circumstances, and after all he had been through with Shane, he will never be going back on this promise.

But Ryan Bergara can’t ever remember Shane Madej. Shane Madej, the demon who gave it all up for this human who had captured his heart with a stupid ghost-hunting show. Shane Madej, the demon who nobody even remembers because he doesn’t exist anymore. Shane Madej, the demon who fell in love with a human.

There have been tales of demons finding their happy ending with humans. Of demons who gave up power and abilities for a happy life with a human. That could have been Shane Madej and Ryan Bergara.

But it will never be.

All because Ryan Bergara can’t remember a love that no longer exists.

 

The End.

 


	22. author's note

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> heya guys

I actually had written the last two chapters in a blur and some sort of panic-induced high but now I have rewrote those two chapters. I apologise if it seemed really abrupt and really rushed previously. But here we are, we've finally come to the end of this piece.

This has been a journey. I have enjoyed reading all your comments and feedback on this piece of writing. I hope it wasn't too devastating or terrible for my first piece of Unsolved or Try Guys oriented writing. I hope I could bring a story, or what could've been, or just an emotional journey in general into your lives with this writing. It has been kind of a pleasure to watch all you readers out there actually read my writing. It is an unspoken feeling to have someone reading my writing and actively thinking about it.

I know all of us wish that this Shane Madej and this Ryan Bergara and this Eugene Lee Yang had a happy ending. I know we all wish that Shane and Ryan would beat the odds and end up pursuing a life together. But it just isn't possible.

Thank you for accompanying me on this journey.

\- your apologetic writer

(P.S. Do you guys want a bonus chapter on what happened to Zach and Eugene? Comment below)


End file.
